This past weekend my family flew to New York City, and as I thought about all the blog posts I had left to write, I tried to figure out what I could write about. And then, as we were landing, I realized that there was a lot of physics in the way a plane stops. Planes are able to travel at extremely high speeds and stop fairly quickly. What I didn’t know though, was what was used in planes as a braking system. It turns out that this can very with different planes. Some use a reverse thrust system
I’ve already talked a bit about the show Sherlock, but I realized that there is a lot more physics involved to talk about. In one episode, called His Last Vow, Sherlock is shot in the chest. It’s a bit complicated to explain, but in the moments of shock following, he processes what he has to do in order to stay alive. The first decision is whether to fall forward or backwards. Because the bullet didn’t go completely through him his best option is to fall backwards to reduce blood loss. However,
Everyone knows that it’s a nightmare to drive in New York City, even if you don’t drive yourself. When I was there last weekend, because we flew there, we had to use cabs and the subway to get around. We encountered many shall we say…interesting drivers. One was yelling at the other cars in a different language, but one of my favorites was the one who thought it was a good idea to drive 60 mph down the streets of Manhattan at 11:30pm. This made for a thrilling trip back to our hotel. Unfortunate
Did anyone else watch that show Minute to Win it? As I was trying to think of something the write my last physics blog post about I thought of one task in particular that contestants were asked to complete. The game was called “Tipsy.” To win, the contestant had to balance three soda cans on their edge by drinking some of the soda to the perfect level. The reason that this task is possible is because of physics and center of gravity. As the amount of soda in the can decreases, the center of grav
