So, I was watching The Flash awhile ago and they were dealing with particle accelerators. As you know, Flash was created by a particle accelerator explosion that caused him to transform into a man with super speed. I know that doesn't actually but what is in a particle accelerator? What is a particle accelerator? A particle accelerator is a machine that uses electromagnetic fields to shoot charged particles to almost the speed of light, while containing them in beams. Particle accelerators have
Going back to theory based physics, we now have to look into what String Theory is now. So, to start off with a general idea of what it is, String Theory is the idea of one-dimensional objects called strings are able to move through space and time and interact with each other. Meaning, the idea of String Theory is the idea of multilevel universes living amongst each other. String Theory can also get into various subject (to solve problems) such as black hole physics, early universe cosmology, nu
Continuing from last post, we covered the footing, jump, and angle of the shot and how all that ties into a perfect shot. But that's not all that goes into a perfect shot. Oh and I forgot to mention about the angle, according to Professor John Fontanella, the ideal angles for a shot by height are here: 5’4"- 52.2 degree angle, 5’8″- 51.5 degree angle, 6’0″- 50.8 degree angle, 6’4″- 50.1 degree angle, 6’8″- 49.4 degree angle, 7’0″- 48.7 degree angle. Ok, so now we'll go into the basketball itself
Steph Curry moves to the right, plants his feet, jumps, shoots, and it's good! You here that all the time while watching a basketball game, especially while watching Steph Curry. But do you think the players know all the physics into making that perfect shot? Starting off before the shot, the footing, moving to the right or left and planting a foot to make a jump shot is how a player uses the physical forces. As a player moves to one side and plants his feet, the body coils. Springing off the fl
Speak! Speak! I'm not talking to a dog, I'm talking to my speaker. Why won't it work? Maybe if I learn the physics of it, I could probably fix it. So, inside a speaker, an electromagnet is placed in front of a regular magnet. The regular magnet is fixed hard into position where the electromagnet is moveable. As electricity passes through the coil of the electromagnet, the direction of its magnetic field is rapidly changed. Meaning, that it is then attracted and repelled from the regular magnet,
You rely on an airbag to save your life in a big car crash. But should you trust your airbag to save you life? Does it always help you or does it do more damage? Airbags are controlled by the laws of motion and are activated and fired through a carefully controlled explosion. They are triggered by high velocity and open up at more than 200 mph. According to the NHTSA, these airbags have been responsible for 296 deaths, including 191 children, 92 drivers, an adult passengers. Problems started w
Bang! You've been in a huge car accident, totaling both cars. But, that's weird. You have no injuries. Why's that? Then, you look at the deflated white sack coming out of the steering wheel and then you're thankful. But, how did the little bag work to save your life? An airbag provides a force over time. This is known as impulse. The more time the force has to act on the passenger to slow them down, the less damage caused to the passenger. About 15 to 20 milliseconds after the collision occurs
Last blog post, we concluded that Sheldon was right; Superman could not catch Lois Lane because he would not be able to get fast enough. For this post, we will assume he is able to get up to speed without reversing time. But, there is still a problem with the scenario, making Sheldon right again (spoiler again). Using the same distance and same time interval (30,000 miles in 3 seconds) he would then need to have an acceleration equal to 1.787 x 10^10 m/s^2, using the equation v = v0 + at. Next,
The story of Superman; Superman, hundred of thousands of miles away Lois Lane is falling from a 100-foot building taking 3 seconds to hit the ground(an example). Sheldon says there's no way for Superman to catch her without Lois getting killed. Leonard says the opposite? Who is right? Just to be an arse, I'm going to give it away. If you watch the show, you would know that Sheldon is always right, and in this case, he is right. So, in the scenario above, lets say Superman would have to travel 30
So how do 3D glasses work? Well basically, your eyes have to see slightly different images. In the real world, since your eyes are spaced apart, each eye gets a different view, therefore the brain puts the two pictures together to make a 3D image. Binocular vision; since our eyes are 2 inches apart, there are two different views. Have you ever looked at a 3D movie without glasses and see fuzziness? Well that's because they took original picture and shifted it like what our brain does. But the sh
Looking at the title of this blog, how long can we live without the Sun? And what would happen if there was no sun? In about a week, the global temperature would drop to below 0. Some microorganisms would live, but most life on Earth would die. Plants would die off immediately, but large trees would stay awhile. The top of the oceans would freeze but below would stay insulated and not freezing for many years to come. So, theoretically, we could live in submarines in the lowest part of the oceans
So what is a worm hole? It's a black hole. But with a twist. Literally. A spinning black hole is called a worm hole, which is believed to actually travel across space. But not going against the laws of physics, but by using the dimensions of the universe. So if you wanted to get across the universe, theoretically, a worm hole would bend the universe making where you are and your destination right next to each other, so you could get there instantaneously. Now going to a dumb hole, something that
So going back to the idea of watching someone fall into a black hole, looking at all the movies, they do it wrong. In the movies, as you go into a black hole, they show your body getting ducked quickly into the hole, and sometimes they show your body stretching into it. That's not true. Actually as you approach the hole, you go slower and slower until you reach the Event Horizon, when you cross in a black hole, you can't return. Once you reach that point, your body freezes and the light coming o
So I was doing some research and I found a little knowledge about black holes. So basically everything in the world has something known as a Schwarzschild radius, if you we're to collapse anything into a tiny, tiny amount of space, it's density would be so large that it's gravitational pull would be so large that not even light can escape. Therefore, a black hole. If you compressed the entire Earth into the size of a peanut, it would create a black hole. So let's say that your friend was going t
So while watching the end of the game, the Patriots had a chance to save the game by kicking an onside kick about 20 yards and recovering it. But in order to do that, it requires little amount of force so it goes just 10 yards, close enough so the Patriots can recover. So today we're going to find the force but instead of a football we'll use just a ball. So let's say the ball is kicked with an initial speed of 10 meters per second. And time goes fast here so they need to get it by in 2 seconds.
THIS JUST IN!!! DJ KHALED LOST AT SEA!!! LAST SEEN LOOKING FOR THE KEY TO SUCCESS!!! So DJ Khaled is lost at sea right now. Let's move forward a bit and say that they found him, but he's drowning; he's falling farther and farther down. What force would be required to bring him up by a crane? Ok let's say that he's 235 pounds (and yes I looked it up) and let's say he's already fallen 10 meters down. So what is acting on him right now while he's falling down? He has his weight, mg, down and a drag
So to end the last blog of this quarter, I would like to talk a major theory in the physics world: the Big Bang Theory. No, we will not be talking about the TV show. But anyways, basically the theory explains the creation of the universe. The theory states how the universe started as a singularity of high density and tempature and eventually over many years expanded to what it is now today. This theory is also explained using a broad range of light elements, cosmic microwave, large scale structu
Have you ever been sitting in the movie theatre and then all of the sudden a man jumps out of the screen and grabs you, or at least looks like he does? Well thanks to the work of 3D glasses, it's almost too real sitting in a movie theatre. 3D glasses play off the idea of using polarized light waves from one plane and only letting that specific light through. The glasses have little, parallel lines etched into it that only let vibrating polarized light from one particular place through. This mea
So for this blog, I thought we'd go back or an old classic: the Atwood machine. We've been looking at and studying Atwood's for 2 years now. Let me explain to you what I know. So first, let me tell you what an Atwood machine is. So on each side of the machine, there is a hanging mass of whatever weight, not always equal on both sides. And hanging those weights is one thing that connects one mass, wraps around a circular object, then is connected to the other mass. So, the masses hang from the
So today we will be going back to the topic of football and looking at another aspect in the game. We will be looking at the kinematics of a quarterback throwing a football. So when you see a quarterback throw a football, how fast do you think they need to throw it? You can use kinematics to find that. So being the quarterback, you guesstimate that he will run 50 meters in 6 seconds. You know that halfway, the velocity in the vertical direction is 0 and at the start, it is also 0. So knowing tha
Back in my youth, I was quite the football player. Ok not really; I was light, slow, and short. But even before my time of physics, I was doing physics. Let me explain how I would use physics in football. So, first off there are many components to football. I'll start off with the hitting aspect of football. So basically the object of the lineman is to stop is opposing player, the defensive lineman, to not kill the quarterback. Let's look at the momentum aspect. As you know that momentum = FΔt
What's everyone's favorite thing to do? Obviously shooting a gun takes the gold. Shall we go into the physics of a marvelous gun? Why not? Ok, let's see if we can find the speed of a gun recoiling using the law of conservation of momentum. So, we know the p =mv, and we know that we have a mass of a bullet and a gun, and then the speed of a bullet but no speed of a gun. And we know that Pi = Pf. So, we use the equation mv of bullet + mv of gun = mv of bullet after it leaves the gun + mv of gun
Here's a question for you physics lovers: A man is walking down the with a toupee weighing .05 kg while strong gust of wind are flying right at him. The coefficient of friction from his head to the toupee is .01. Using -10 as acceleration due to gravity, what force is required for the wind to blow the toupee off his head?
Well if we were to look at the forces acting on the toupee, there is a gravitational force down of mg = .5 N, a normal force up of. 5 N, some force F acting to the
So let me tell you a story about my girlfriend and her tragic story of her phone. On her way into the house, she had a big load to carry in. Not concerned about her phone, she was walking into the door and her phone slipped from her pile of belongings in her hand and fell right in the floor and now has a big crack across the whole screen. So, as she was walking she had a velocity as whatever let's say Vx. But this doesn't matter since all that matters in a free fall is the vertical velocity, Vy.
We all do like 50 times a day. But did you know that there is physics in that? Probably. But I'll talk about it anyways. So when you go to open a door, there is a force at some angle theta. So, if you break that into its components, you have a horizontal towards you and a vertical force down. But only the horizontal force is acting to open the door. With that force, we can find the torque (T = Fdsin(theta)), the rotation of the door as it swings open. We can also find the angular velocity using