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Lasers

Through photon camp in which I attended last year there was a lot of talk about lasers. This is because while using optics you can do a lot with lasers this is because you are easily able to manipulate them. The three things that all lasers have are an energy source, a medium and a resonator. The energy source or source pump is used to provide the laser with the energy that it needs to be powered. The medium is what really separates lasers because it determines the strength of the laser or the p

SJamison

SJamison

The butterfly effect

@Cvankerkhove had a blog recently about the butterfly effect. The butterfly effect is basically the idea that every thing that happens has an effect on everything else so if one thing doesn't happen everything else could be different. This got me thinking about the idea of time travel and how things would change if you were to go back in time and interact with other people. With this idea in mind what would change? Would the time line that you went back to, continue on and basically start all ov

SJamison

SJamison

Golf

The key to golf is not only patience but to have a consistent swing. If you can hit the ball the same way with the same force overtime you can be accurate with how far you hit the ball just by changing clubs. Each club has a different loft and an angle associated with it. Knowing the angle and the force exerted on the ball allows for you to be able to calculate the distance that the ball will travel using kinematics because you are able to find the horizontal and vertical forces suing the angle

SJamison

SJamison

Monster truck flip

In order for a monster truck to be able to do a front flip it needs for one of its points far from it's center of mass to come into contact with a fixed object. One way of doing this would be to get the truck into a wheelie or almost stand the truck up, then you need to hit a fixed object like a very steep jump. This will cause for the truck to begin a rotational motion and begin to do a front flip. This is because the impact of the tires on the fixed surface act as a torquing force which cause

SJamison

SJamison

Dropping a gun

In almost every action-comedy movie there is a person who happens to drop a gun and then it goes off. This however just does not happen every time a gun gets dropped. For a gun to be fired it requires the firing pin to be activated and to do so you either need to pull the trigger or get the hammer to release and come into contact with the firing pin. The chances of this happening are slim to none. In fact, a lot of gun instructors will tell you that it is safer to just drop the gun if it falls o

SJamison

SJamison

whistle

How does a whistle work? In order for the typical whistle to work you need air streams. In order to get the high pitched noise that you hear coming out of a whistle you need the air steams to interact or cross paths. This is done through the round part of the whistle, as you blow into the whistle the air travels through the loop and up again (as seen in pic below) this allows the air to cross paths with the new air coming in. At this point where the air stream crosses itself again becomes a high

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SJamison

Turbo = Fun

A turbo system in a car is a pretty simple but genius idea. It uses the gas exhaust from a piston engine to spin the turbine in the turbo system which then pumps more air into the cylinders of the car, allowing the car to burn more fuel each second. As a result of a turbo system, your car will burn more gas but because of this the turbo will provide the car with more power due to the increased revolutions of the pistons. By installing a turbo in your car you will be able to increase your cars ov

SJamison

SJamison

Spoiler

So on the back of super cars you often find a spoiler. As a kid I always thought that a spoiler was just to make the car look cool but in fact it does serve many purposes depending on the positioning and type of spoiler used. One use of a spoiler is to push the air around behind the car as the car pushes through the air this reduces the drag force on the car. This application of the spoiler can improve gas mileage. Another reason why spoilers are seen on super cars is because when traveling a ve

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SJamison

Wringing out water on ISS

So as we all know there is no gravity in space so, what would happen when you want to wring out a wet towel there? I fond this question very interesting when talking with friends so I thought I would take a deeper look into it. When you have a very wet towel and go to wring it out, the water is not just going to fall off like it does on earth. Instead because of the  waters surface tension and lack of gravity in space, the water will float around the surface of the towel  forming a tube shape ar

SJamison

SJamison

MRI machine

So recently I had knee surgery, about four months ago on my right knee. Everything was going well and good until a few days ago. Come to find out I messed up my knee again but wait there's more, this time it was both of them. My right one definitely has another tear in the meniscus and the surgery is scheduled.  But, the left knee, however, we were unsure of so i had to get a MRI done. During this I was curious to see how it worked but come to my amazement so was the guy operating it. Despite th

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SJamison

Human strength

A human body has the ability to release a huge amount of strength through its muscles. The reason that a person is unable to unlock all of this strength at any given time is so that muscles do not get strained or torn in the process. This is a cool safety feature of the body so that people do not over exert themselves and end up crashing. In order to produce large amounts of strength it takes a lot of energy and using muscles to their max for a long period of time can be very harmful to the body

SJamison

SJamison

Hot Drinks on Warm Days???

So I recently came a crossed an article that said drinking warm liquids on hot days will actually cool you down faster than a cold drink. I found this really strange because I would have thought that a nice and cold refreshing drink would cool you down,however, like normal I was wrong. I thought that was really interesting so i decided to look into it. I found out that this is actually true. When drinking a hot liquid on a hot day it will cause you to sweat more than than usual, cooling you down

SJamison

SJamison

The Helmet

It is better to not get hit in the head but sometimes it just ends up that way. Hockey helmets are designed like most helmets with the ability to absorb most of the energy from impact. The thing that I believe separates a hockey helmet from a standard football helmet is the fact that the top of the line hockey helmet rotates a little around your head without jerking your head in the initial impact. (I don't Know enough about football equipment to speak on behalf of the equipment) However, most i

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SJamison

Underwater Explosion

When an explosive goes off under water the shock wave carries a lot further than it would if it were on land and in the air. This is cool because water has a higher density than air so this mean that it is harder to move or has higher inertia. And we know that inertia is a measure of how restive something is to acceleration. This means that after the explosion goes off the shock wave from that will carry further through the water with smaller deceleration. From this we know that this shock wave

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SJamison

Jumping from high distances

When a person is jumping from a high distances to the ground or other hard surfaces it is important to maximizes the time that you are decelerating. This is vitally important because the thing that causes injury is the force that is applied to you over short periods of time. If you can spread the force out along a period of time the impulse over time wont be a as big thus your body will not have to absorb all of the energy at once allowing for a safe landing. This also allows for the body to be

SJamison

SJamison

Bullet proof glass

Everyone calls it bullet proof glass but in reality nothing is bullet proof. The term for it is bullet resistant because if something is shot enough, one will find its way through eventually. Bullet resistance glass is a combination between very thin sheets of glass and even thinner sheets of tough plastic made of polycarbonate. This is able to work because as the bullet hits the glass it breaks the thin sheets of glass and the energy from the bullet is absorbed by the plastic layers. To make th

SJamison

SJamison

The kronwall

Kronwall is one of my favorite defenseman in the NHL. The reason for this being his huge hits that he has (shown below) and this great defensive play. The reason for hit great hits is because he combines his massive self with a good amount of speed to completely wreck players. The main reason this is so effective is because of a fundamental aspect of physics which is the idea that momentum must be conserved. Since he catches his opponent off guard it allows him to build speed and use his mass to

SJamison

SJamison

Falling down the stairs

So last night it was very late and dark and my mom decided to leave a basket at the top of the stairs. I think you can see where this is going from the title. So going down stairs was very fast. And getting up the only thing that I could think about is what just happened in terms of energy. The first thought that I had was how much potential energy I had at the top of the stairs. The next was how much transferred into kinetic energy from falling down the stairs. Then I thought about the mid way

SJamison

SJamison

Stomping in the snow

When you are walking in the snow have you ever noticed that when your foot lands in light, fluffy snow your footprint is actually bigger than it is and you can see the extra space with your foot still there? This happens because when you are bringing your foot down it traps a pocket of air between your foot and the ground. As a result of this once your foot hits the ground that air pocket is dispersed thus it causes for the snow around your foot to move even though you are not touching it. This

SJamison

SJamison

Winter Wonder Lander Part 1

With this wonderful weather comes wonderful roads. From driving, it can be a very dangerous with the coefficient of friction much smaller making roads very slippery. Thinking about our previous unit with rotational and transnational motion it can relate a lot with a car in the snow. When starting up the tires often spin when very slick out causing for more rotational movement rather then the wanted transnational. And then as you get going you begin to build more transnational rather than rotatio

SJamison

SJamison

A flexible pencil???

Why does a pencil or any linear object look like it is bending when you wiggle it? I was very curious of this today and was wondering why? The answer to this question is that in the way you are wiggling it you are rotating around its center in such a way that our eyes perceive that the ends of the pencil is moving faster even though the angular velocity is truly the same through out because it is truly a rigid object. The reason for this is because when an eye is viewing a fast-moving object the

SJamison

SJamison

Skating

So with the hockey season starting today I thought that i would do a blog about hockey. Thinking about skating in hockey and why you need to get your skates sharpened, this is to allow for there to be enough friction to propel you forward. This is just like running were you need friction between the ground and your feet to be able to drive forward by pushing back. The only difference is that in hockey you need the skates sharp to cut into the ice in order to drive yourself forward. This is showi

SJamison

SJamison

Knee surgery

So in the past month I have recently had Knew surgery to remove a torn meniscus. This surgery was relatively quick only lasting about an hour. Knee surgery has come a long way from where it use to be. They use to have to open up the whole knee but now you only walk out with three little holes in your leg. All the thanks goes to physics and the ability to manipulate things using modern knowledge of optics and modern technology. During this surgery they were able to take out a torn piece of menisc

SJamison

SJamison

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