I love spy movies, so its no surprise that when my family received Casino Royale (a James Bond movie), for Christmas, that I was glued to the T.V. In the film, James' female counterpart, Vesper, is kidnapped by evil gamblers. Being the smart guy that he is, James quickly figures out their plot, hops into his Aston Martin and speeds after the kidnappers. However, his kidnappers are actually after Bond, so they tie up Vesper and place her directly in the road; Bond swerves to avoid Vesper, his
A few days ago, my sister and I were leaving school. As our hands were both full, she used her body weight in order to push on the main door in order to exit the building. However, the door would not budge. I quickly realized that my sister, in her attempt to open the door, was not applying torque to her favor in this situation. Torque, which is the rotational equivalent of linear force, is dependent on three factors: the angle at which the force is applied, the magnitude of the force, and t
Thanks to the freezing cold, our family ice rink is up and running as of this week; today was the first day that I managed to squeeze in a skate. While physics has many applications to ice skating, the two I thought about today while freezing in the bitter cold were centripetal acceleration and work. Because my rink is rather small, most of the time I am going around a turn instead of skating in a straight line. As I was going around these turns, I realized that I was distributing a majority
We all learn the importance of friction in how the world works at a very young age. For me, a Bill Nye video revealed the power and importance of this contact force. Without it, we wouldn't be able to stand still in one place, driving would be a nightmare, and about everything else in our lives would be completely out of whack, from our electronics to our daily routines. Today, however, as I was doing homework, I had a realization of friction that, although simplistic, was something I had to
Last Wednesday, my tennis team went to individual sectionals. While we ended up losing 7-10, it was not before I ended up badly scraping my knee against the court. See, the opponent hit a great shot, and as I accelerated and bent low to hit the shot, my knee came into contact with the tennis court. The force I was applying due to my sprint was in the direction of where the ball was, yet the frictional force from the court on my knee was in the opposite direction, causing a net force on my kne
