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Last weekend I crossed the border into Toronto, Canada for a "girls weekend" with my mom and sister. Our main purpose of going there was for a yoga convention for all the yogies of the world. While at this convention, we of course experienced tons of physics! When doing different yoga poses, we experienced the great phenomenon-gravity- at work. When "ohming" or saying "namaste" we experienced sound waves, and the vibration they produced so that we could here them. But when we weren't doing yoga, we somehow still experienced physics! By dropping tons of money at the 3-story mall, The Eaton Centre, we experienced the force that our heavy shopping bags created on our arms. When taking the elevator to a new floor of designer stores, we experienced physics there and how we felt heavier when going up, but lighter when going down due to acceleration. We lastly saw physics when we hit the pool/hot tub in our wonderful hotel. The jets pushed water out creating different waves or bubbles. We also created waves by jumping into the pool. Depending on the type of jump or how hard it was, the amplitude changed all the while carrying the energy we put forth by jumping in. This weekend adventure was full of physics just like everything else!

The Space Race between both the USSR and the United States is by far one of my favorite eras of history to study. They say competition is the perfect motivation, and I truly believe, from a technological standpoint, this is era is a prime example of that motto in its purest form. Some of the biggest strides in human history were made in a time where computers were still the size of rooms all due to fear, curiosity, and drive. Public Service Broadcasting’s album, “The Race For Space”, tries to capture all of these emotions, during a handful of critical points, along this journey in order to show how important this period was for Humanity as a whole. (I will cover the tracks in event order not track order) Track 2: Sputnik The year is 1957, and, as tensions of the Cold War are ever increasing with no end in sight, humanity has its eyes on the one place neither power has even traveled: space. The Soviets, ever fearful of the United States launching into orbit, rushed through their plans to launch a 3,000 pound satellite equipped with various scientific instruments. They ended up downsizing dramatically to a 184 pound payload with a 58 centimeter diameter without any instruments. On October 4th of that year it was launched on a R-7 rocket with four stages. It nearly suffered a catastrophic launch failure, but the a combination of engine thrust and wing movement saved it last second. Well what did it do? It beeped. And that beep was the beep heard all around the world. Well at least for 22 days… its batteries actually exceeded the expectation of 14 days. For the first time in all of human history something was able to orbit the earth. It wasn’t the first man-made object in space, but it was the first which was in continual free fall around the earth. So, yes, the Soviets to prove themselves put a beeping piece of metal into orbit because that is all they needed to do to stir so much amazement and fear. The device whose name directly translates to “travelling companion”, would be the spark which set the both countries ablaze and straight into the most heated technological race in all of human history. Track 3: Gagarin It is now April 12th, 1961. Multiple years have passed since Sputnik, but no shortage of tests and animals had been launched into space, including the famous cosmonaut dog Laika on Sputnik 2. Now it was time to push the barrier forward onto man's reach into space. Enter Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin. A 27 year old Senior Lieutenant Gagarin was chosen out of over 200 Russian Air Force fighter pilots by peers and project heads due to his exceptionally quick thinking and attention to detail. At 9:07 A.M. Vostok 1 took off carrying Gagarin on board. Due to the feared consequences of free fall, the Russian mission control was totally in control of the craft the entire time. Yuri was the first human ever in space, a true high water mark achieved by humanity. His trip lasted one obit, a total of 108 minutes. While the United States press showed fear of losing the space race, he was seen in many places as a hero for humanity, going on a global world tour to be paraded around countries including England, Canada, and, of course, across the USSR. This stance of him being a pioneer, regardless of national affiliation, is what PBSB was aiming for in their upbeat track. Looking back now it is easy to say he was a true pioneer for all of humanity and his efforts will forever go down in history as that of a hero. Track 1: “The Race for Space” The date is now September 12th 1962. President Kennedy is making a speech to 40,000 people in Rice Stadium. At this point, the United States is far behind in the space race launching the first American, John Glenn, nearly a year after Gagarin. Kennedy knew he needed to rouse the American spirit, and, in effect, his speech became a defining speech in American history. A link to the full speech can be found here: https://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/ricetalk.html. Perhaps one of the most ambitious technological proposals made by a president, Kennedy promised that by the end of the decade America would put a man on the moon. Keep in mind no spacewalks had been taken, lunar modules had been made, no docking sequences had even been practiced, and here was the nation’s leader saying we could make it in 8 years or less. The National Defense Education Act had been passed due to Sputnik and had been in effect since October 4th 1957. Now its efforts of acting as a booster for the mathematics and science related fields was beginning to see results. Young engineers and scientists began coming out of Universities in order to rapidly increase the nation’s technological investments to bound ahead. This key moment not only left the nation space crazed, but made getting to space a budgeted objective at the front of the nation's interest. This vow and critical commitment is what would pave the way for the American Space program to come, as now Americans all over had their eyes on the skies. Track 7: “Valentina” Fast forward to June 16th, 1963, Vostok 6 is launched. It is the last in the man orbital missions launched by the USSR starting with Gagarin. Well what made this so different? This time the passenger was Valentina Tereshkova. Yes, the first woman in space. Her mission lasted 3 days and she kept two way radio communications with Voltok 5 which was orbiting with her. In this time she made 48 orbits, which was quite a large feat at the time. Her personal background was that of an avid skydiver and textile factory worker making her the first civilian in space as well. The space suit she wore was the MK-2 which was very similar to the MK-1 that Gagarin wore. These suits were only meant to be pressurized in an emergency, such as if the cabin was punctured. It would take a better space suit in order to do an EVA which is the coming up milestone. Up until this point, humans have remained within their pressurized cabin in order to take a safe trip, but now we move onward and upward by finally getting out of the restrictive hull. Track 5: “E.V.A” On the 18th of March 1965, the Voskhod 2 mission was launched. Two cosmonauts were abroad: Pavel I. Belyayev and Alexey A. Leonov. Belyayev was the primary pilot while Leonov was the secondary, but he had a far more important mission. He was to perform the first E.V.A trialing the first space suit with a life support system in the backpack. The flight lasted 26 hours and made 16 orbits. During this time the first spacewalk lasted approximately 20 minutes with Leonov claiming the experience gave him a sense of complete euphoria and tension at the same time. The mission, being reported as a major success, acted as a dramatic blow to the United States government. At the same time, many catastrophic failures occurred while in space, but were never reported on the ground. A few moments after Leonov stepped out of the shuttle he realized his suit had inflated to the point he could not get back in. He needed to decompress, and as he let out oxygen he began feeling the initial symptoms of decompression sickness. He began pulling rapidly on the cord thrusting himself in with a moment to spare, but at his current temp he was at risk of heat stroke. His perspiration blocked his view so he had to maneuver around the airlock blind. He eventually did it and made it back in to the safety of the shuttle. This was only the start of the problems though. Due to this maneuver the oxygen content of the shuttle soared, meaning any single spark would have it blow up as quick as a flash. They managed to lower the oxygen concentration back to a safe levels. The ultimate test occured when they had to manually re-enter the atmosphere due to engine problems. They were exposed to high G forces along with high temperatures only to land off course in Siberia. They were eventually recovered and hailed as heroes. This was yet another large step to making it to the moon with the United States still lagging behind. And they were soon to have one of their largest hardships to date. Track 4: “Fire in the Cockpit” On the 27th of January 1967, an event which would live in national infamy occurred. The Apollo 1 space crew, comprised of Virgil Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee, all entered their command module to undergo a simulation for their up and coming launch. The first problem arose when Grissom complained of a “sour smell” in the spacesuit loop, but decided to continue the test. This was followed by high oxygen flows triggering on and off the alarm. This wasn't resolved as the communications were experiencing problems resulting in the line being only between pilot Grissom and mission control. At 6:31, oxygen levels quickly rose as Chaffee casually says he smells fire, but within two seconds, White proclaims, “Fire in the cockpit.” Escape procedure was supposed to take ninety seconds, but ultimately that time frame was too long. In the highly oxygenated environment, the fire spread too quickly, followed by the command module rupturing forcing black smoke across the landing pad. An eventual investigation found that the fire was started by a faulty bundle of wires located behind their heads. It took firemen three minutes to quell the fire and to open the doors, but it was too late all three perished. It was a day of national remembrance and an overall low in the American Space program up until that point. Their sacrifices were distinguished with the highest regard as the nation mourned and tremendous loss. Track 8: “Go!” Apollo 11 is by far the most known aspect of the space race. It is the moment where scholars say the United States sealed their place as the winners of the space race. It inspired kids for years to come to become astronauts. The Apollo 11 mission’s ultimate goal was to land the first man on the moon fulfilling Kennedy's earlier promise and legacy. Apollo 11 launched on July 16th, 1969 with astronauts Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin. It took 75 hours to reach lunar orbit. This is where the focus of the song is. It includes a systems check as the lander makes it's landing maneuver and lands on the surface. The utter tension at mission control was palpable. This was the most critical part of the mission, and when they landed, from the utter joy heard over the radio, the public knew they had finally done it. Tee descent began at 102:33 with the ultimate touchdown resulting at 102:45. After a period of set up and a postponed rest period, Armstrong made his exit onto the surface at 109:24:19 to utter those famous words. Aldrin soon followed behind with the whole thing being broadcasted to the American Public. This moment, the moment where America gathered around their television screens to watch them be the farthest away from anyone else that any human has ever been, was the height of the space race. They made their return launch starting at 124:22 and plunged back into the Pacific Ocean on July 24th. These pioneers set the standard of human exploration in the space age and acted as role models for new explorers for years to come. Track 9: “Tomorrow” The last track of the album is of course the most inspirational. It focuses around Apollo 17, which was the last manned mission to the moon. it was launched on December 7th, 1972 with crew members Eugene Cernan, Ronald Evans, and Harrison Schmitt. It's main objectives were to put a Rover on the moon, conduct testing, and take samples such as moon rocks and photographs. In total over 16 hours of EVA were conducted, 30.5 kilometers we're traversed by the rover, and 243 pounds of samples were collected. The mission was a success but extremely bitter sweet being the last mission in the Apollo chapter. It ultimately completed the era of the Space Race. It has much more sentimental value in this aspect, as the track takes the time to reflect on the previous decade and a half of progress and how far the human race has come. Ultimately the space race was a period of history where nations gathered behind the scientific progress they conducted. Yes, there was always the fear of mutual destruction, but the sense of shared awe at what humanity achieved far overshadows that factor when looking back at history. There are not many periods of history where technology progressed at such breakneck speeds, and may not be for a long time. There is plenty more to read about the period, and I encourage you to do so if this interested you at all. As always it had been a pleasure! This is ThePeculiarParticle, signing out. Informal Bibliography Esa. “The Flight of Vostok 1.” European Space Agency, European Space Agency, www.esa.int/About_Us/Welcome_to_ESA/ESA_history/50_years_of_humans_in_space/The_flight_of_Vostok_1. “The First Spacewalk.” BBC, BBC, 2014, www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/2014/newsspec_9035/index.html. Larimer, Sarah. “'We Have a Fire in the Cockpit!' The Apollo 1 Disaster 50 Years Later.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 26 Jan. 2017, www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/01/26/50-years-ago-three-astronauts-died-in-the-apollo-1-fire/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.7d4feb08cec3. “NASA.” NASA, NASA, www.nasa.gov/. “National Air and Space Museum.” The Wright Brothers | The Wright Company, airandspace.si.edu/. RFE/RL. “Kennedy's Famous 'Moon' Speech Still Stirs.” RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty, RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty, 13 Sept. 2012, www.rferl.org/a/kennedy-moon-speech-rice-university-50th-anniversary/24706222.html. “Space.com.” Space.com, Space.com, www.space.com/. “Sputnik Spurs Passage of the National Defense Education Act.” U.S. Senate: Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, 9 Mar. 2018, www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Sputnik_Spurs_Passage_of_National_Defense_Education_Act.htm. (Disclaimer the websites were used many times for different articles)

...(But probably not.) In light of the holiday season, I bring to you a Christmas-themed blog post, with a pinch of love and some hints of gravitation. I came home from school today and stepped into the living room, astutely noticing that the Christmas tree had fallen. Obviously, the first thing that ran through my mind was that gravity did this. I mean, gravity's everywhere - it's a pretty likely culprit. You may or may not notice the lamp just above where the tree fell, but I believe it to be of great importance in this investigation. I have deduced that, at any time from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM on Tuesday, December 16, the gravitational attraction between the tree and lamp created a gravitational orbit that forced the tree out of its holder, and onto the cold ground. Let's take a look. First off, the tree had to begin in static equilibrium - it was still at first. Due to Newton's first law, an outside force had to act upon this tree, and I do believe that the placement of the lamp near this tree provided an IMMENSE GRAVITATIONAL FORCE. So let's dive in. We know that the magnitude of this force is given by GMm/r^2, where G is a constant, M is the tree, m is the lamp, and r is the distance between the two. G = 6.67E-11 Nm^2/kg^2, we know this. The average mass in kilograms for a Christmas tree is about 70 pounds at this height of tree, or 31.75 kg. The mass of the lamp is about 8 pounds, or 3.63 kg. I can already see this force is about to be massive. And the distance between the center of mass of the tree and lamp? About 5.5 feet, or 1.68 meters. Time to calculate. F = [(6.67E-11 Nm^2/kg^2)(31.75 kg)(3.63kg)]/((1.68m)^2) Therefore, the force due to gravity is a whopping 2.72 NANONEWTONS. This incredibly large force undoubtedly caused the displacement of the tree; therefore, gravity ruined Christmas. You may be subconsciously pointing out the holes in my story, like how did a gravitational orbit just occur if the lamp was there the whole time, or perhaps just pointing out the fact that two objects on Earth will likely only apply negligible forces to each other. Fair enough, but keep in mind that there is absolutely no other worldly explanation for this phenomenon. So it's either gravity, or ghosts. You decide. Or maybe the cat just knocked it over.

Physics is involved in pretty much everything in life. Throughout my school day I experience all kinds of physics. First period I have Italian where I sit down (along with the rest of my classes) and I am applying a force to the chair and the chair is applying a force to me because of Newtons third law. Second period when I get my math test score back I hit my head against the desk which is also applying a force to the desk and the desk applies one right back. Third period is art class where I gravity is pushing my eyelids down while I struggle to stay awake. Fourth period is APUSH which could be compared to a black hole. Black holes have tons to do with physics. A black hole is a point in space with so much gravity that not even light can escape and that is most definitely APUSH... Fifth and 6th periods are the best of the day because I do not have classes these periods so I can do my homework. Seventh period is English where I push down on my pencil and it leaves a mark on the many papers I have to write. Gravity also pushes down on that pencil. Eighth period could be the first period of a double for physics or if I am lucky its gym. In gym there is so much physics. A ball is thrown and is a projectile motion. Gravity acts on the ball at all times. If were running in gym we push down on the ground with our legs and the ground pushes us back allowing us to run. And then ninth period, well there is too much physics in a physics class to list. Tons of gravity throughout the day and tons of newtons laws. Crazy..

So if you haven't heard, a rocket that was supposed to bring supplies to the International Space Station (ISS) exploded on October 28. Here's a short article and video talking about it: http://www.wired.com/2014/10/antares-rocket-explosion/. Obviously, this kind of sucks. The rocket cost about $200 million and now most of the supplies won't make it to the ISS. However, explosions are still really fun to watch, especially one that big and I don't feel bad saying that since the rocket was unmanned. Also interesting is that the rocket was made by Orbital Science, under contract of NASA. This shows that the space industry is slowly because more of a private industry with Orbital Science and SpaceX leading the way at the moment. They aren't sure exactly what caused the rocket to fail, but the actual explosion was caused by the self-destruct being purposefully activated. The real problem was right when it fired its first stage - you can kind of see this in the video. As soon as this problem was noticed, it was decided to destroy the rocket before it reached a populated area and could potentially cause damage. Any number of factors can mess up a rocket launch; there are a lot of variables. Wind speed and direction, an area clear of people, weather, calculations, etc. I think the biggest things I learned from this are that those errors we usually don't account for in our physics labs (FRICTION!!) matter a lot in the real world, and that we still have not perfected going to space. I'm excited for space tourism anyway.

Soooo, because this is my last blog post for this year ( ), I thought it would be fitting to do a course reflection on the AP-C physics class this year. I thought I'd do it in a "bests-vs-worsts" top 5 format, kind of like you could find on collegeprowler.com when viewing different schools. Top 5 Bests: 5.) Blog Posting [i thought this was really fun! I've never done anything like this before for a class. It brought up interesting physics applications and I thought it was fun to converse with classmates on the site ] 4.) Independent Units [As uncomfortable as I was at first, independent units forced me to manage my time, work harder than usual to learn the topic, and was great preparation for college. I feel like everyone sould experience this kind of a unit before graduating] 3.) Assigned practice problems from the readings [Assigned problems were REALLY helpful. I would've struggled a lot more than I did had I skipped doing the sample problems] 2.) Units with Lecture & book follow-up [This is my favorite way to learn things! The read-then-lecture method] 1.) VIDEOS <3 [Hands down the most helpful resource in Physics] Top 5 Worsts: ...I think this is my biggest beef. I really don't have 5 things to complain about. 1.) Readings weren't assigned [When life gets busy in the middle of the year, especially with a number of APs, sports, etc., readings are the first thing to get cut out for me if they're not assigned. Confession: when the going got tough, I would often skim or not read. I reccomend assigning readings in the future. Kids will complain, but they'll thank you when they see better grades and their AP score.] Overall, this was a successful year. A note to future students: This is by far the hardest AP course I've taken throughout high school. If you want to succeed, you must: A.) Read the textbook and do some practice problems B.) WATCH THE VIDEOS. Whether you're confused or simply want review, these are soooo outrageously helpful. It's like being in class a second time, except in 15 minutes or less instead of 42. Plus, you can skip over any sections that you feel you know solid. C.) REVIEW THE EQUATIONS AND FREE RESPONSE BEFORE THE AP. I went through most of the E&M free response questions as well as both E&M and mechanics equations before the exam. KNOW THE EQUATIONS! I swear equations and key concepts are the majority of the test when it comes to the multiple choice Qs. Any favorite parts of the year? Things you wanted to change? Post below with your opinion! ...I can't believe we only have 1 more day of physics

PCX is a workout area that I participate at weekly with my volleyball team. We go on tuesday nights to exercise as a team. I realized while watching videos that i recorded of the exercise's how much physics was applied into each activity. The vertamax that we use for jump training is full of physics. When you use the vertamax you put on a belt with two clips on either side of your hips. You then stand ontop of the vertamax (a square flat surface) and then attach the clips to different color resistance bands. With the vertamax at PCX you can either choose to use it for jump training or leg strength by making the bands go parallel to the floor instead of perpendicular. Once cliped into the machine we are told to jump and go for maximun height. The force of the resistance bands pulls us toward the ground and makes us work harder to get higher into the air. Once we are done useing the clips we unclip the bands and then jump without resistance and analyze the height difference. The jacobs ladder is another machine that we utalize on a weekly basis. Similar to the vertamax you belt yourself into this machine and then "climb the ladder." You can control the speed of the machine with how much force you put into it. If you are working hard and pushing yourself and the machine then the output on the machine will mirror your work and move faster to challenge you. The machine is inclined at a angle so as to simulate climbing up a ladder type object The angle that it is inclined to makes it more difficult to climb. The Pull up bar is also full of physics. With three reps of eight pull ups my team is challenged to bring their entire bodies up into the air transitioning from potential energy into kinetic. We are given band to put our feet into for extra support. The rubberband like bands expand and retract to help differ our weight. The sled is yet another item that we use to work out. Notice this is not your typical snow sled. This sled is a black device that you put weights on inorder to work your legs and arms. Having the sled on the turf surface creates more surface tention and therefore more work to be done by my teamates. There are two different holds that we can choose from when using the sled. The two different holds are all about angles. The higher of the two is easier because you are able to use the machine against itself to push it across the turf. The lower of the holds means that the players body is parallel to the ground and very close to it. The force that it takes to push your legs and arms together to get the seld across the turf is increased from the higher angle hold. Basically every tuesday i have extra amounts of physics added to my day!

My childhood, like many others, was spent watching many Disney Movies. One of my all time favorites was the Lion King- I never grew tired of it. One scene that always sticks in my mind is that once music number of young Simba and Nala and, of course, the scene of Mufasa's Death. (0:49-1:20) It can usually bring tears to even the toughest of teens, yes? As a child, this scene really never bothered me and, now, this sad scene seems to bother me so much more. Mufasa died a heroic, and untimedly, death by saving his only son. However, we should move onto the Physics now. How accurate is Mufasa's death, exactly? Could a fall from that height really kill an adult male lion? How far did he fall, anyway? It's very hard to tell but, after reviewing this scene many times I feel I can give a good shot at answering these questions. From what I can tell, Mufasa's fall lasted roughly 5 seconds (1:07-1:12ish), and started from rest before... Scar decided to be a jerk and condemn Mufasa to death. So, using the equation d=vit+(1/2)at2, knowing his falling time was 5 seconds, he started from rest, and acceleration due to gravity is 9.81m/s2; It can be estimated that Simba's father fell about 123 meters. While he seemes to be fairly high before he fell, I highly doubt that the the distance (vaguely seen at 0:50) was taller than the Statue of Liberty. Obviously, it makes sense why a Disney movie would over exaggerate the death of a character, and not care about making the Physics of a children's movie accurate. While real Lions are tough and resiliant, a fall like Mufasa's (even if less than 123meters) would still kill or severely injure an adult lion- not taking into account the stampeeding wildebeasts trampling. So, as expected, Disney's The Lion King takes little care in being realistic... It was still interesting to think about, however! And imagine how cool (at least, I think so) it would be if a childhood classic was actually completely accurate- in a physics sense (because animal's can't talk).

I have a very large interest in bees, so for my first blog post I've decided to research how bees see colors differently compared to humans. Through my research I have discovered that the color spectrum of bees is shifted when compared to the color spectrum of humans. Visible light is part of a larger spectrum of energy. Bees can see ultraviolet – a color humans can only imagine – at the short-wavelength end of the spectrum. So it’s true that bees can see ‘colors’ we can’t. Many flowers have ultraviolet patterns on their petals, so bees can see these patterns. They use them as visual guides – like a map painted on the flower – directing them to the flower’s store of nectar. Some flowers that appear non-descript to us have strong ultraviolet patterns. Being a bee doesn’t necessarily mean you live in a more colorful world. Bees can’t see red – at the longer wavelength end of the spectrum – while humans can. To a bee, red looks black. Humans see light in wavelengths from approximately 390 to 750 nanometers (nm). These wavelengths represent the spectrum of colors we can see. Bees, see from approximately 300 to 650 nm. That means they can’t see the color red, but they can see in the ultraviolet spectrum (which humans cannot). Bees can also easily distinguish between dark and light – making them very good at seeing edges. This helps them identify different shapes, though they can have trouble distinguishing between similar shapes that have smooth lines – such as circles and ovals. Vision is important to bees, because they feed on nectar and pollen – and that means they have to find flowers. Bees can use odor cues to find a perfect flower, but that only works when they’re already pretty close. Vision is essential to help the bees find flowers at a distance. A bees Vision in responce to different colors: Red -> black Yellow -> yellow-green Orange -> yellow-green (darker) Green -> green Blue -> blue plus ultraviolet blue Violet -> blue plus ultra violet Purple -> blue White -> blue green Black -> black In conclusion, bees have a very unique color vision.

As advised by Mr. Fullerton, I did the Coat-hanger bubbles experiment to further understand flux! Pre-experiment preparation: First, in my closet I found a nice metal coat-hanger suitable for the trial. After attempting to reshape the coat-hanger, I learned that my hangers are very strong, or that I lack strength; so, I went to my brother's toolbox and grabbed pliers to help bend the wire into a slinky-like shape. My coil ended up having four turns. I then ventured into my kitchen to fill the sink with soapy water. With the bubbly solution complete, I was ready to start the experiment. The experiment: I dipped my wire coil into the water, and slowly pulled it out. I found that the bubbles didn't form well to the structure. So, I compressed the coil by pushing the turns closer together. When I tried again with the compressed coil, the bubbles formed nicely between each turn and along the outside of the coil. The formation of the bubbles between each turn demonstrated how the number of turns matter when calculating flux. Therefore, the more turns, the greater the flux. Hence, the equation for magnetic flux is: N=number of turns A=area within one loop B=magnetic field =angle between magnetic field and positive normal direction Everyone should try this experiment before the test on Wednesday!

While I was pouring ice cold lemonade for myself, I wondered-- "What would happen over time if I waited for a cup filled completely to the brim with ice to melt? Would the water spill over the cup as the ice melted? Or would the ice just melt leaving the cup still completely filled to the brim with no spills?" Huh. I had to test this out. I decided to use a cup filled with ice, and slowly poured water to the exact brim of the cup, and left a napkin under to see if the water would spill over after the ice melted. This was not enough for me. What if the cup were filled with ice and grape juice? Or ice cube grape juice filled with water? Or ginger ale? Or milk? I was curious. I tested these all out, only to find I was wrong in my original hypothesis. I was sure I'd come back to my kitchen a pooling mess of water, milk, grape juice, and ginger ale, but I was very wrong. I had three cups of perfectly filled glasses completely filled to the very very tippy top, like no other cup has even been. It was amazing. I realized something was up with water. These things called hydrogen bonds really mess with us chemist and physicists. Why? Because they can. In liquids, molecules slip, side, bond, break and reform. However when the water turns to ice, the molecules are rigidly bonded. This creates more empty space between the molecules when the hydrogen atoms bond together so rigidly and thus frozen water occupies more room. It is also less dense than liquid H2O because of this space. This is why ice floats in your Sodas. Or why in the winter-- better known as the constant weather in Rochester-- lakes and ponds freeze at the top and not on the bottom. Because ice is less dense due to H2O's molecular structure of Hydrogen bonding (positive to negative --oppositely charged ends of the water molecules-- creating space). Solid ice takes up more space than the liquid state of H2O. You would think that water would behave like every other substance from liquid to solid-- that the molecules would become denser and more compacted-- but no, it does the exact opposite. Because water is tricky, and that's why we drink it. You may be wondering why the milk and grape juice? Those are mostly water based as well, that is why. Due to the change in thermal energy, we all know that the water transferred energy from the high temperature (water) to the low temperature (ice). This is the second law of thermodynamics. It is also considered an energy heat flow. As we know, this happens so that this water glass can reach a happily balanced equilibrium. This is why ice melts. Even milk ice. The energy in the glass is never destroyed; the first law of thermodynamics tells us energy is conserved. Here are some cool links (pun intended) on ice and why it is less dense than its liquid state of H2O. (Also why it would not spill over a glass even when filled to the brim and left alone for an hour or so.) Not all science experiments have to be messy. http://www.word-detective.com/howcome/waterexpand.html

Hey, do you know whose birthday it is? It is the one, the only, Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss! He was born 241years ago today! Since Gauss' Law helps us solve problems with cylindrical, spherical, and planar symmetry, I thought it would only be right to wish him a happy birthday! Thanks Gauss!

At the end of last quarter, I wrote a blog post about how I needed to change a few things because of the disaster that had come about in all my classes but especially physics. I feel that over the course of the past 10 weeks, I have changed the way that I learn and study. I find that I am more focused to get things done and understand them in a timely manner. I use all of the time given to me efficiently as well. Before this quarter, I found myself wasting class time and not doing the work that I needed to do in order to understand the content. Now that the learning is almost done for most classes and we move into the studying for exams during the last quarter, I need to remember the success that I have had during this quarter and continue it on. I know I can do it. We are now in the final stretch of high school and I am ready for it all. Until next time, RK

I have always wanted to see the northern lights, or Aurora Borealis. I've dreamed of travelling somewhere like Alaska or Finland to see them. In fact, there is a hotel in Finland with glass igloos so the vacationers can see the northern lights from their room. How cool is that?! Aurora Borealis mainly occur in high longitudes, but what exactly causes them? Turns out, it's from charged particles from the sun being expelled into space. The particles then come in contact with Earth's magnetic field. Then the Earth directs the charge to the poles and they collide with gas particles. Here's the hotel with glass igloos too... And more northern lights pictures because I love them!

This week on Wednesday, I had to get an MRI for my knee to make sure everything was ok after I injured myself playing soccer a couple weeks earlier. While I was there, I was very curious about how the whole process worked and how it relates to physics so I did some research and here is what I found. In an article from medicalnewstoday.com titled MRI Scans: All You Need To Know by Peter Lam, I learned that "an MRI scanner contains two powerful magnets" and "upon entering an MRI scanner, the first magnet causes the body's water molecules to align in one direction, either north or south." So this is why I had to take off my earrings before going into the scanner because otherwise it would've been attracted to the magnet and cause problems. I then learned that "the second magnetic field is then turned on and off in a series of quick pulses, causing each hydrogen atom to alter its alignment and then quickly switch back to its original relaxed state when switched off. The magnetic field is created by passing electricity through gradient coils, which also cause the coils to vibrate, resulting in a knocking sound inside the scanner." This would explain why the machine was so loud and I had to wear headphones to block out the noise. But luckily, I got to listen to some country music to block out the sound of the banging. The scanner then detects these changes "and, in conjunction with a computer, cman create a detailed cross-sectional image for the radiologist to interpret." Lucky for me, my MRI showed that my knee looked very good and my injury was most likely a bone bruise. MRI's are very helpful tools for diagnosing patients and getting a better look inside the human body and I can appreciate knowing a little bit more about how they work! Visit: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/146309.php to read the full article.

Everyone seems to skip leg day, not me!!! Leg day is by far my favorite, especially back squats (I can back squat 365lbs ladies ). While the back squat is a simple movement, it requires tremendous power in your legs. To perform a back squat you must place the bar on the back of your shoulders, lower your hips down bellow parallel and bounce out of the bottom of the squat . Once you bounce you will reach a spot in the lift where you will have to push down on the ground in order to push yourself and the bar up. The back squat involves a lot of momentum and a very big impulse. The impulse occurs during the bounce at the bottom and without a large enough impulse you will fail the lift. Don't skip leg homies, leg day is the best day.

The clean and jerk is an Olympic weight lifting movement where the lifter pulls the the bar from the ground, catches it in a squat, stands up from the squat and thrusts the bar over their head. The clean is performed by pulling on the bar off the ground with a high velocity, once the bar reaches about chest height, the lifter drops under neath the bar and catches it on his shoulder, and sits in a low squat position. The lifter then pushes up with a high velocity to stand back up, this is the clean. The jerk part of the movement is fairly simple. The lifter dips their hips down how ever far they desire, then they thrust the bar up with a high velocity, kick their legs out in a lunge position, catch and hold the bar at rest above their head.

Like everyone else, this is my first blog post for Physics C. Outside of school, I really enjoy to golf, play CYO basketball, be around my friends or attend sporting events. I love to watch baseball and football, and that's how I spend all of my time that isn't taken up by calc, physics and econ. My biggest strength in school is that I generally understand things pretty quickly, but I could definitely benefit from an improved work ethic. In the future, I plan on attending college like most other kids in my position, but I really have no idea what I want to do once i get there. I am taking AP Physics C because, as I said, I really have no idea what I want to do in the future, so I figured the best way to set myself up for the future was to take the most challenging classes possible. What I do know about my future is that I want to be as successful as possible, and really intend on selecting a major that will best set me up for this. You're always told to major in something that you are passionate about, but I don't think many colleges offer a major in the arts of watching the New York Mets. Through this class, I hope to gain a better work ethic and improve on working in a setting like this where you have to learn a lot of things more independently. I also hope to understand Physics to a greater extent than I do now, because I feel like this topic could definitely be an important one for me going forward. The thing I am most excited for this year is the day I finish my final AP exam, because once that day comes I will have survived senior year. I am very anxious for the decisions I will have to make about my future over the course of this year, especially regarding college. Just saying the word college is enough to make me anxious. I am definitely excited to see what's in store for me in this course, and I look forward to writing many, many more blogs.

The European Organization for Nuclear Research known as CERN was founded in 1952. Since then more than 80 countries have been contributing to the research done in the particle accelerator and trillions of dollars have been invested. Many argue that the money spent could have been invested in humane projects rather than spending it on research of tiny particles in huge machines under the ground that go through multiple countries. But most of us don’t know the great benefits the research provided us in the past years which greatly justifies this investment. The research provided the discovery of cancer therapies, monitoring nuclear waste, helps to save tons of electricity in power transmission, the discovery of the MRI, and the greatest of all a better understanding how our Universe works.

My dear friend Ryan needed a car. I was gracious enough to give him the beat up ford in my garage. However, physics have worked against this car since 2004. We spent hours trying to get this car to even turn the headlights on. The physics of electrons traveling between my brothers battery and the fords. It took a solid 2 hours in order to get the car to turn over. Finally, my brother got into the car and drove it a bit to get the rust and dust off the car. As a result, the car stalled out and died 20 meters (not yards) down the street. Gravity quickly took the wheel, and the car stopped. Physics never stops working against the ford and Ryan.

Since 3 years I’m playing rugby for the RC Danube Junior Pirates in an international league. This following summer we’ll play against a team from South Africa and France and I’m already really excited! I am currently playing 1st row tight head prop which would be a forward in soccer. Every time somebody makes a mistake or brakes the rules a scrum is utilized. In the position I’m playing I am in the first row for the scrum which happens pretty often. For most of you who have never heard about a scrum (short for scrummage); it is a method of restarting play in rugby that involves players packing closely together with their heads down and attempting to gain possession of the ball. With all that said there is a ton of physics involved! The shoes that are rubbed into the grass are giving me a good grip because of the resistance the dirt is providing. Every player gets pulled down by gravity and is only able to maintain in this position because they lean against the opposite team. Which team then has the grater inertia and stronger players will push the other team away and gains possession of the ball. A year ago I would have never thought that there is so much physics even in a rugby game

we have been studying electricity in physics and to make it more interesting Mr. Fullerton brought in a vandergraph. Mr fullerton asked for volunteers to get shocked and of course my entire volunteered. In one hand I had Brenda and on the other I had Kara. Kara freaked out a little while we were charging up shocking everyone behind her in our line. This gave me the opportunity to shock the rest of the class . and so I raised my hand slowly toward the piece of metal holding the ceiling tiles in place and when my finger was approximately three inches away from the metal I saw a mini lighting shoot out of my finger and into the metal while simultaneously electrocuting everyone else . This experience was a unexpectedly painful some might say it was even shocking.

You're reading this blog post, which means you're alive. Good. I'll begin by assuming that you believe you're living on Earth as of now - a reasonable conclusion to draw, I suppose. But what if I told you that we were nothing but computer-generated simulations, living in an artificial world? I doubt you'd be very willing to believe me, and I don't blame you - it's an impossible thing to prove. Well, nearly impossible. To get a little philosophical on you, since the beginning of philosophy itself many have speculated that our reality is nothing but an illusion - something fabricated by our own minds. Obviously, it seems ridiculous to assume that we are just simulants, artificial intelligence living in a digital world, but this is in fact a theory. The modern form of this simulation theory was postulated by Nick Bostrom, philosopher at Oxford University, in the aptly named paper, "Are you living in a computer simulation?" He states that, due to the enormous computing power that humanity will likely develop in the future, it is more probable that we are simulations, living in a world generated by "posthuman" technology, than the belief that we are carbon based organisms inhabiting the "real" universe. This seems like an absurd claim to make, but he does use several probability calculations to back this claim up. This theory corresponds with the "holographic principle" which implies that our three-dimensional Universe is a hologram/illusion, projected from information encoded on a two-dimensional chip. But sane people have criticized this argument on the grounds that such a computer, with the power to artificially create our Universe, would have to be larger than the Universe itself, and would require more energy than the entire Universe has. Which is a valid claim - but as others quickly pointed out, it would take a heck of a lot less computing power to create an "imperfect" Universe, where the simulation is just good enough to fool us into thinking it's real. In other words, parts of the Universe would only be programmed as we observe them - like, for example, far-off galaxies only exist while we simulants are studying them with scientific equipment. And the second we look away, it's gone. This is reminiscent of solipsism, where things only exist as we observe them. Of course, this again delves more into philosophy. Yeah, it's a creepy thought, and it lies just at the border of physics and philosophy. But don't let it worry you too much - I'm sure we're all real. -Simulation complete-

Friday, the day of Halloween I figured I would have a normal day. Have an easy day at school, then have Halloween fun after school. Well I found myself fighting a bear on Halloween instead. It was a tough fight but I managed to defeat the bear and skin it's bear fur and sell it for a profit. While carrying the bear hide I tripped and fell on a small rock and fractured my ankle. Just kidding, I didn't fracture my ankle after the fight, that was later. 3rd period, around 10 o'clock is when the action really happened. 3rd period is my gym period and I always go hard (Go hard or go home, right?). Well this time I wasn't too into the game and didn't go hard for the first time in a while. We were playing soccer and that involves a lot of forces and trajectory and what not. Unfortunately, one of the forces that class period was not applied only onto the ball. When a teammate passed me the ball I was casually standing there as another player ran up and pushed me, clearly I pushed him back though (normal forces and such). When I was pushed I tripped and fell and landed on my foot, sideways. Applying forces in all types of directions. I later went to Urgent Care and discovered that I had fractured my ankle and needed a split and crutches. I'm no longer allowed to apply forces to the ground (even though it returns the favor) because it will make my dusty ankle even worse.

In Football Newton's 3rd law of motion is in action. When a running back is running head on against a tackler who is running just as hard and fast the outcome may vary. In games there are times where the running back gets hit so hard that he fumbles and other times the running back pancakes the tackler. One of the biggest factors is the mass because the forces are creating equal and opposite reaction. Force is applied and transmitted back. The player with more mass will generally hit harder.

Having turned 16 on August 29th of 2014, I got my permit from the local DMV. After having driven for about a month, I took on the challenge of driving on the highway/thru-way to a dentist appointment. Although I was undeniably freaking out the entire ride, we safely made it to the dentists where they proceeded to do their thing. Now, post traumatic highway experience, I can see that there is a lot of physics not only involved in the car itself, but driving as a whole concept as well. For example, there are a variety of forces acting on the vehicle as it is in motion and not. In both circumstances, there is the force of gravity that pulls the car down as well as the normal force, or the ground "pushing back" on the car. There is also the force of friction that acts on the car both when it's moving and when it's static or not moving. Also having gone from neighborhood streets to the highway(s), the speed limits have changed. This means an increase in velocity and more acceleration (especially when first getting onto the highway...scariest part). So even though in the moment when all I could think of was not crashing, looking back, it shows that physics is a huge component in the little things we do everyday.

To start, I apologize for a fourth consecutive video game physics blog. But I somewhat recently splurged on a new game that I think demonstrates a point I touched on earlier - video game physics are becoming more and more visually impressive. Destiny is developed by Bungie, a well-loved company that brought the masterful Halo franchise into the gaming world. It's a quite repetitive adventure, and flawed in several ways - but gameplay aside, both fans and detractors agree that the game looks incredible, depicting the solar system (well, parts of it) beautifully. (The game's dancing physics were actually perfected by Paula Abdul herself. Not really though) Destiny uses a physics system developed by the company Havok, who are well-renowned in the world of gaming physics. It relies heavily on physical simulations and collision physics, both of which are prevalent here. Things like a character's hair or cape will actually show realistic signs of movement while running, etc. By blending vibrant artistry with actual soft body simulations, they believe they have the cutting edge technology to bring to life the exciting world of computer-generated foliage. In all seriousness though, these superficial little details truly show how much gamers care about graphics, and how fluently the game moves. And, I'll be the first to admit, these details do significantly increase the immersion factor while playing. It's one of those games where you just have to stop every once in a while and look around. My favorite use of this physics system though is without a doubt the Sparrow mechanics - a Sparrow being, of course, an all-terrain space hover bike. It's unrealistic...for now. For an added bonus, we note how the thrust of the engine in the back of the bike propels the bike forward, due to Newton's 3rd Law, which not-so-surprisingly, holds up pretty well in space. But also note how the bike seems to instantly lock on to the gradient slope of the terrain it hovers over, a pretty interesting physical phenomenon that permeates the whole game. All of these crazy, futuristic weapons and gadgets seem far off, but we never know if something like this could end up coming into fruition. Check out, for instance, a "fusion rifle". Could we ever harness the energy to create something like this? I mean, if its name is accurate, I assume it generates energy through the process of fusion - yes, not fission, FUSION - going on INSIDE some kind of fusion chamber in the rifle. In like a split second. (And we don't even know how to do fusion yet, so we better get on it if we want to stand any chance against the aliens.) To conclude, though, I'll quote the ever-popular video game aphorism: "Graphics aren't everything." And that's certainly accurate. You can create a beautiful game with inspiring physics engines that still manage to disappoint thousands and thousands of gamers - that's what happened here. This game is now the most popular new game franchise of all time, and its budget was a whopping half billion dollars. Yeah, with a 'b'. However, it gives us gamers a friendly reminder that if the game doesn't play well, all of this money is for naught. Destiny's story doesn't hold up at all, especially looking at Bungie's Halo series, which had beautifully done storylines. This isn't to say Destiny's bad, I personally enjoy this game - but it certainly won't satisfy anyone looking for a storyline that's followable - or even coherent. So here ends my rambling Destiny physics-discussion-review-hybrid blog post. Hopefully it helped anyone on the fence make a decision to purchase it or not - and if not, tune in for my next post. Which is hopefully about something other than video games.

What's this? New AP-C students? Welp a new dawn has... dawned and I have made the short stroll of 18 miles to RIT. So what has changed? Not much. Right now you AP-C'ers are taking, I assume, mostly college level courses and believe it or not they are actual college level classes, like no joke. With Calculus, Physics and other classes I was (and you are) taking the equivalent of a Freshman year in college. If it sounds intimidating its because it is, taking that big of a step a year early is very tough and will, at points, seem like the worst decision of your life. Don't get me wrong senior year is lots of fun, but remember, if a class like Calc or Physics is getting you down, hold on. At some point or another you will have to realize that not all knowledge is easy to learn and high school is the best place for that. Mr. Fullerton is amazing and he, unlike a college professor, will help you through every step if he needs to. Enjoy yourself and make it a great year! Oh yeah, READ THE TEXTBOOK (I have to pay for mine, use it while it's free) Have fun and stay classy, Shwiby

Physics is.. so gosh darn great I feel like it and I... are fate. With a Newton here, or a Pascal there, These SI units we love and share. Whenst look for a potential mate, All emotions to physics, they equate. If the air in the room feels perhaps electric, Just know that physics isn't eclectic. A standard mix of fun and function, Studying physics fills one with compunction. Alas, alack, it is time to go, I'll need to do work, that's fo' sho'. As Bernoulli said, just go with the flow. So shine like a lumen and simply glow.

Physics class is becoming very interesting, especially through this circuits chapter. I am learning about series and parallel, and the different formulas that are applied for each. I have also learned about Ohm's Law (V=IR). At first it was difficult to remember the different formulas for both series and parallel circuits, but after doing many VIR Charts, the work has become a bit simpler. I have learned a few things for both series and parallel circuits Series: Electric Current (I) is equal all the way through = I1=I2=I3 Parallel: R = (R1-1 + R2-1 + R3-1)-1 Also, this Kahn Academy video has explained a little more for me! www.youtube.com/watch?v=3o8_EARoMtg

During my first week of physics class i felt completely lost! I wanted to understand physics so badly! I love math; so I was confused as to why I was not understanding physics. We were learning kinematics and I had no idea what was happening. What's velocity? What's acceleration? These were some of the questions I was asking myself. After much practice I finally got the hang of it! Looking back at kinematics it seems so easy! Hopefully with some of the harder material I will feel the same way! One of my favorite experiments we did in class was watching what happens with an electroscope. An electroscope is a model that demonstrates the movement of electric charge. Check out the video I posted below to learn all about an electroscope!

Yesterday I climbed Giant Mountain, one of the 46 Adirondack High Peaks. With a summit elevation of 4,627 feet (1,410 m) Giant is the 12th tallest of the high peaks and with an elevation change of 3000 ft in 3 miles it's also on of the steepest. The journey began at the car near the trail head where I was deciding on footwear. The 2 options were hiking boots (0.92 kg a pair) of Nike frees (.42 kg a pair). The boots would be heavier and require more work to ascend the mountain, but would provide better traction and keep my feet dry. The frees would require less energy but likely slip on everything, provide less support and get my feet drenched within minutes. I chose the boots, so how much more work did I do climbing the mountain? The ideal approach to figuring this out would be to multiply the number of steps that I took while ascending and descending the mountain by the average distance that I lifted my feet with each step; and then multiply that by the force I exerted against the weight of my boots/shoes (work=force*displacement). However I didn't count my steps because counting for 5 hours would have driven me insane and the vertical distance that I lifted my feet varried widely on the diffenrt sorts of terain I encountered. So I'll just use the vertical displacement up the mountain as my displacement. The difference im energy expendature can be found by multiplying the difference in weight of the shoes by the displacement up the mountain. Difference in weight=(.92kg-.42kg)(9.8m/s2)=4.9N Vertical displacement=(3000ft)(1mi/5280ft)(1609m/mi)=914m work=force*displacement Difference in work=(4.9N)(914m)=4497.6J So by choosing the boots I expended about an extra 4500 Joules (about 1070 calories) of energy (but I estimate that in reality It was probably closer to double that). However as we climbed further the trail became covered in snow and ice, making it incredibly wet and slippery, so without the boots I likely would have fallen off the the mountain and gotten frostbite on my feet. In the end think 4500J is a fair tradeoff for not dying.

Throughout the age of cyber technology...one thing has always been a menace to our electronic productivity. There is only one force that can disturb the power of the internet. That force manifests itself as hacking. Ever since computers were available, people (with their natural evil tendencies) wanted to steal others' information. And so they did. A recent hack on Adobe could possibly be the largest ever. 152 Million Adobe accounts were discovered by the security firm LastPass to be compromised by hackers. That's 152 million credit cards...now at the hands of a smart computer user. Although the information has been restored quickly, some hackers have been more lucky. In July of this year, four men successfully hacked into the NASDAQ, among other megacorporations like Citibank, PNC Bank, Heartland Payment Systems, 7-Eleven, and JCPenney. Stealing credit card informatin along the way, these four men "owned" the NASDAQ while they had control over one of the world's largest financial database. I've had a personal encounter with hacking on this website. An anonymous user has breached my account and has recently posted a blog post... Some people want to watch the world burn.

"Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty — a beauty cold and austere, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music." —Betrand Russell Physics is, in essence, applied mathematics. It's how math applies to life, and the results thereof. And math is... beauty? That's not how one would usually think. However, there is a certain beauty to math and how everything resolves itself when it is applied. The way tree growth and snowflakes resemble fractals, light waves follow the simplicity of a sine curve, a top wobbles back and forth, light bends around a magnifying glass - heck, we learned some of these last year in physics B. But while analyzing the theory behind it, how many of us stepped back to think of the beauty? However I explain it, watching it makes it better.

All a cross history the assassin brotherhood have hunted the twisted templar order through many forms of assassinations. They rely on their acceleration and distance in order to proform a quick assassinations. One of their techniques is an air assassination which is made through their initial velocity and time in seconds to assassinate a templar. they leap of high places with a prabola shaped air assassinations. One of their most deadly tools of assassinations is the rope dart which uses force to pull a guard from rest and into the ground within seconds. these small tachtics have made the Asssassin's creed the most feared brotherhood in all of gaming history.

It was hot. REAL HOT. I just had gym and I realized I had fysics next period...all the way on the third floor. Dun Dun Duuuuuuuuuuun. I knew by the time I got up there I would be dying of exhaustion and be sweating profusely. Its not looking good on this horrendousjourney. As I began to climb,as I expected, I started to sweat more and more. I wondered what terrible thing would cause this to happen to me and then I realized it was all fysics fault. I wanted to figure out how much extra work I am doing by going to third floor instead of the first, so I calculated the amount of work to clib the climb the stair. To determine this I assumed the stairs have a height of 7 inches. I also remembered my work equations from fysics B. W=∆Et to find ∆Et I must find my change in potential energy, with respect to the first floor. My change of energry from the first floor to the top would be a change in potential energy which is the equation ∆Et=mg∆h. Assuming each step is 7 inches and there was 42 steps the change in height is 294 inches. To convert this to meters I must use the conversion of 1 inch= 0.0245 meters. So (294)(.0245)=7.203 meters. I also have to do a conversion of my weight in pounds to mass in kg. The convertion for this is 1lb=.453592kg. (135)(.453592)=61.22142kg. I then use both of these conversions to plug into the equation ∆Et=mg∆h. ∆Et=(61.22142)(9.8)(7.203), ∆Et=432.15833Jules ∴ W=432.15833Jules. That's a lot of work before we do work!

The average aircraft will usually suck up a couple thousand feet in order to stop. The average single piston engine aircraft will take less, and a 747 will take much more (>5000ft). This creates a problem. Aircraft have insane amounts of momentum upon touchdown, and pavement isn't cheap. In addition, we can't have "mobile" airports for military use - so how are we able to deploy combat ready aircraft to anywhere in the world within a matter of hours? Well, we made mobile airports. And, they float! The aircraft carrier was first used in 1920. Essentially, it was a floating street where some aircraft landed, and others careened into the ocean, killing their pilots. There was no effective and safe way to stop aircraft on such a small distance. As of 2013, things have changed. The modern aircraft carrier is a small metropolis, with crews of more than 2,000 sailors. The technology has improved to a point where we're able to launch and recover 90 aircraft on the same ship. But how do we do it? Simple - Hydraulics! Laid across the aircraft carrier's deck are four wires. When an aircraft, like the F/A-18 in the video below, hits the deck, the aircraft "catches" one of those wires on a hook attached to the fuselage of the plane. The wire then rapidly sends kinetic energy of the aircraft to "hydraulic dumping systems" that, in simple terms, tug on the aircraft until it's stopped. It's like a ship with massive, hydraulically-backed rubber bands. But landing is only half of the story. How does the F/A-18 launch from the carrier? Sure, it could take off like a conventional airplane, but the runway is far too short! The aircraft would simply fall off the deck. *insert splashing noise here* We needed some sort of "catapult" to get the aircraft moving fast enough so that the wings could produce more lift than the aircraft's weight. So, we used what we were experts in - Steam! By pressurizing a tank to very high PSIs, that potential energy is released, dragging the aircraft by yet another hook across the deck with a final velocity of anywhere between 120-150 Knots. These catapults will soon be replaced by electromagnets, that use electric currents to create strong magnetic fields to propel the aircraft into the air. These systems are far less expensive than conventional steam catapults.

Hi there. I'm a new Physics AP-C student, and I would like to tell you a little bit about myself. I'm an avid programmer/science enthusiast, and am looking towards entering a scientific or science-related field. I (as one may assume) like science and math, and more leisurely things like playing video games or disc golfing. Things of the sort. The reason I'm taking Physics AP-C this year is because I'm interested in learning more about physics and I want to solve more challenging problems using my physics knowledge. I enjoy calculus and I think it will be cool to see some of the applications of what I learn. As a result, I hope to not only hone my calculus knowledge but get some useful information on specific areas of physics and, in general, how to approach difficult, complex problems in an effort to solve them. I always enjoyed electricity and magnetism, and I'm looking forward to that and hopefully being able to dream up some cool uses for my new knowledge. However, no matter what we learn, I think I'll be excited just to know it. So I'm hoping to have fun!

After many, many long hours and tons of great feedback from physics teachers across the globe, I'm thrilled to announce the AP Physics 1 Essentials, a guidebook / review book for the upcoming AP Physics 1 course, is due for release in late August. I began work on this project in the summer of 2010 when conversations at the AP Annual Conference in Washington, D.C., led to a number of different teachers talking about the need for a detailed course breakdown to support the change, followed by discussion of what the true cost of the change would be in terms of instructor hours, curriculum rewrites, resource revisions, etc. It was obvious there was going to be a need for a guidebook for the course, and my goal was to provide a short "everything you need to know" book that was easy-to-read, fun, engaging, and inexpensive so that students could pick this up as a guidebook/review book without having to purchase entirely new textbooks to support the changing course. I quickly picked up a following of fans eager to see the project succeed and more than willing to contribute what they could, from early draft versions of the Division of Content plans (which only vaguely resemble the final curriculum guides), to proposed and/or recommended formula sheets, to technical reviews, editing, "wish lists," etc. I've been amazed at the positive response and helpfulness of so many, that has allowed this project to progress through multiple obstacles, from revised content and organizational issues through technical hurdles such as a corrupt book file caught nearly 80% into the rough draft. I guess this qualifies as checking the "nothing worthwhile is easy" box on the project. I'm grateful to my family for allowing me the many hours early in the morning, late in the evening, and during the summer to work on this effort. As I write this, for example, I'm on vacation with my family. It's almost 6 am, I'm watching the Allegheny River flow past, and just saw a bald eagle fly up the river, not 30 feet from where I sit typing. I also must thank the many physics instructors across the globe who have contributed in so many ways, from editing to hints to encouragement... but I need to say a special thank you to the APlusPhysics community. The website began as a tool to use in my own classroom, and quickly grew so popular that I felt compelled to continue to expand it at the request of its users. With more than 30,000 students using it EACH MONTH, I've been absolutely floored by the number of thank-you messages, letters of encouragement, and success stories contributed voluntarily by community members. You guys set me on this path, made the site and the books successful, and it's your encouragement and support that have kept me at this project through the wee hours of the night and long hours of frustration. Moving on to the final product… I'm proud to say the book is finished. Sure, it has a few more edits to make, a few more tweaks here and there, but everything is on track for a late August 2013 release. My long-term goal was to have the book released one year before teachers began teaching the revised AP course, and it appears we'll hit that deadline on the nose (with special thanks to the AP for delaying the change a year from the date I was originally told back in the summer of 2010). I'm hoping you find it valuable to your courses and studies. This book was written as the guidebook I would want my students to have for the course. Not a full standard physics textbook, because my students don't learn and fully read their physics textbook (except in snippets), but rather a book designed to be used as written, read AND understood, with tons of example problems and solutions. Thank you so much for your tremendous support. I hope you enjoy AP Physics 1 Essentials as much as I enjoyed the opportunity to work with you and so many other amazing people on this project. Make it a great day!

When your in the shower belting out songs so know one can hear you i bet you have never thought that singing would have anything to do with physics. Well youre wrong! It totally does! People can not only hear your singing but they can also feel it! By singing, your voice creates vibrations that form into waves. Sound can be represented in wave form. The amplitude of the wave (the height of the wave) is represented by how loud you are singing. The amplitude is the degree of displacement of teh vibrator. Singing at a louder pitch create more vibrations, while singing at a soft pitch doesnt create as much vibration. This can be heard and felt in a car also. Depending on what the volume and the bass in the car is set at a person sitting in the car can feel the vibrations. Usually you cant feel the wave vibrations of a voice that isnt amplified unless you are on a surface that can allow waves to pass through it easily. For example, you can feel vibrations through would very well. So next time your mom or dad say stop singing you can tell them i am just practicing my physics

The Quantum Physics of Alice and Wonderland Lewis Carroll had some interesting ideas in his works, especially in Alice in Wonderland. Alice falls asleep in a meadow, dreams of plunging through a rabbit hole, then finds herself too large and then too small. She meets new and bizarre characters on her way as well, including the Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, and the King and Queen of Hearts. She experiences wondrous, often strange adventures, trying to reason in numerous discussions that do not follow the usual paths of logic. Finally she totally rejects the dream world and wakes up. This book almost mirrors the theories of quantum physics. Things in extremes: things too small and too large. Just like the tiniest particles you can think of--quarks and electrons--and the biggest thing you can think of-- galaxies, black holes, and more recently discovered, the Large Quasar Group. http://www.livescience.com/23232-smallest-ingredients-universe-physics.html http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/01/14/quasar-cluster-largest-object-einstein_n_2470562.html Quantum disobeys many theories in classical physics. Especially many of Newtons claims, and now even Einstein's. It reveals laws which could have the slightest bit of chaos to change entire equations already used in classical physics and logic. Alice does crazy things that would not have normally been seen as proper or normal. She gets really big, then small, falls into rabbit holes, talks to cats... And, everything in physics is about a cat as we all know, and the Cheshire Cat explains to Alice that everyone in Wonderland is mad, including Alice herself, hence it must be right. The Cheshire Cat gives directions to the March Hare's house and fades away to nothing but a floating grin. Cats can do everything. They can be alive, be dead, be alive and dead (vampire cats), not in a box, in a box, or floating in mid air with only its teeth showing. Many things in Alice in Wonderland are illogical or just confusing and weird, this is all you need to know about quantum physics. The mallets and balls in a game of croquet (in this wonderland) are live flamingos and hedgehogs. And there are illogical laws much like in quantum physics with the Queen frantically calling for the other player's executions. Amidst this madness, Alice bumps into the Cheshire Cat again, who asks her how she is doing. Obviously some cats worry. But the King of Hearts interrupts their conversation and attempts to bully the Cheshire Cat, who impudently dismisses the King. The King takes offense and arranges for the Cheshire Cat's execution, but since the Cheshire Cat is now only a head floating in midair, no one can agree on how to behead it. In the Schrodinger's cat, there is a cat enclosed in a chamber with a vial containing hydrocyanic acid, a radioactive substance. If even a single atom of the substance decays during the test period, a relay mechanism will trip a hammer, which will, in turn, break the vial and kill the cat. The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics implies that after a while, the cat is simultaneously dead and alive. (This is all in theory.) So similarly, in this case, no one can decide whether the cat is both dead and alive, or either dead or alive in this wonderland, no one can decide how to behead the cat. Alice's wonderland is much like the theories and laws of quantum physics. There could be the most structured laws in physics, but the tiniest bit of randomness occur in quantum physics which causes much stress, chaos, and a lot of calculus for scientists and science itself. Such complex theories and complex and imaginary numbers make this wonderland of physics. I can understand how Carroll, being a man of mathematics, could make such a book. Mathematics is so literal and straightforward, and makes you a little mad. Some theories make you wonder whether we are existing at all, and whether time is real. Math can make you crazy just by trying to explain how 1 is larger than 0, or how to describe a straight line in 20 pages. Alice in Wonderland is a book which has underlying tones of reality and debate over many theories of quantum physics. This does not surprise me because Carroll was a rather exceptional student of Oxford, where he studied mathematics and was great at Aristotelian logic. The author's life and work has become a constant area for speculation and his exploring of the boundaries of sense and nonsense which has inspired a number of psychological studies and novels. They are against Alice's common sense: 'I can't believe that!' said Alice. '... one can't believe impossible things. But the White Queen has her own principles: "Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.' (from Through the Looking Glass) Which is possible...and impossible! Everything, anything and nothing may and may not occur in quantum physics, but above all, only some of it is in theory, the rest is true, and there is proof and evidence backing it all up. As for Alice in Wonderland, that�s up for you to decide. http://www.npr.org/2010/11/12/131274183/the-spookiness-of-quantum-mechanics

In many of our video games and even in real life we sometimes come into contact with a hunting rifle or sniper rifle. For some games its just point and shoot and you hit him but for some games and in real life you have to compensate for the drop of the bullet. But did you also know that, that bullet you just shot and the case of that bullet as it flies out are hitting the ground at the same time? But back to the drop of the bullet when you fire. When you fire really any gun you have to aim a bit up from your target depending on the distance you are at. Gravity pulls the bullet down even if it might seem that it would take awhile as the bullet comes out of the gun gravity is acting on it and the bullet is being dragged down but slower that other objects because of the speed it is at. So next time you go hunting and you think that you are going to get the animal right in the sweet spot try aiming a little higher then where you want it to go, then it might be right on. But to come back to something, the drop of the bullet and the shell of the bullet. These two things drop and hit the ground at the same time. As you shoot the bullet goes flying off at high speeds, but when you pull the bolt back on the rifle and the case flies out and hits the ground, both parts of the bullet have hit the ground. They are technically experiencing the same thing its just the bullet shot is experiencing it over a greater distance with a greater speed.

Last night I was at an awesome concert, but as I looked around, I realized how much physics can truly relate to everything going on around me. First of all, if you are at a concert, you expect to hear some music. That must mean that sound waves have to be traveling through the air for everyone to hear it. As I was sitting there enjoying the concert, I realized that the speed of sound in air at STP is 3.31x10^2 m/s! This made me extremely happy to have some background information on sound waves that most people don't have because they didn't take regents physics. I also knew that the closer I got to the stage, the higher the frequency and amplitude would be, and if I started heading towards the door, the amplitude and frequency would decrease, which illustrates the Doppler Effect. Also, there were some pretty awesome lights shining all over the stage and occasionally over the crowd. I was watching the colorful lights, when all of a sudden the electromagnetic spectrum came to mind. I thought about how out of the whole spectrum, there is only a small part that is made up of visible light. I also thought how all the colors can come together and if they are reflected, that creates white, and if they are absorbed, that creates black. I also realized how fast light must be traveling, at a speed of 3.00x10^8 m/s! This information gave the concert a whole new meaning. As I was looking around at the crowd, I noticed that a lot of people seemed to be crowd surfing, but many of them fell to the ground, which looked pretty painful. I then wondered what their final velocity would be when they hit the ground, so I decided to use one of my kinematics equations to figure it out. First of all, a person's initial velocity would be 0 m/s, because they are just lying on top of the crowd right before they fall. They would probably fall a distance of 2.5 meters, and their acceleration would be 9.81 m/s^2. I then could use the equation vf^2=vi^2+2ad, and once I plugged in all of my known values, I figured out that their final velocity would be about 7 m/s.

i have a problem. every time i pick up a cat to let it fall to its death, it manages to turn around mid air and land square on its feet, even when im not giving it any initial rotational speed. the law of conservation of angular momentum says that the cat can not start rotating after i have dropped it, assuming it starts with no angular momentum at all. so how they do it? turns out, they actually bend themselves into a v shape in mid air, breaking their rotational axis in two. this lets them turn their front half against their bottom half via muscles in their torso, resulting in both rotational motion along the center of mass, and along each side of the v they created with their body. this allows them to quickly spin around while still conserving their total angular momentum. when theyve turned 180 degrees, the cat simply bends out from the v shape, into what is more or less a line, in which state the cats is not turning at all, because the net angular momentum must be zero, conserved from the beginning. therefore, cats are immortal.

Click below for the Light/Optics Units materials. [ATTACH]686[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]682[/ATTACH]

usually, when shot at, the average person would have neither the reaction time, nor the hair strength to deflect a bullet with a braid of his hair. the mere thought of such an impulse delivered to a bullet without crushing it or harming the hair seems to go against all physics, however for those of you who have seen the movie pootie tang, starring pootie tang, you know that pootie dont need no words, pootie dont need no music, and apparently pootie dont need no physics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9F8ahCk_qhY

last year with Mr. Powlin we made some simple water bottle rockets after the ap exam. as we designed and built, we had a basic understading of what our rockets were supposed to look like, but for the most part were in the dark as far as the technical physics behind it. this is what i hope to explain. the common expression "this isnt rocket science" may have you expecting long equations with foreign symbols, however simple rocketry in its essence is counterintuitively pretty simple. for the type of rockets we made last year, only one condition is required for it to maintain its orientation, being that the center of mass must be higher on the rocket than the center of drag. This is why Mr. Powlin kept telling us its better to have more weight at the tip, the farthest point ahead of the center of drag, the fins. keep in mind that this only accounts for the meathod of stabilization using friction, as there are other ways to keep a projectile oriented, such as the use of gyroscopic forces, as used in bullets. PS, if you want to calculate more complicated aspects of rocketry, you will run into some pretty nasty equations.

due to my procrastinativity, i now have to due all ten posts in one night. its getting quite bland. i feel like talking about computer screens, as it is what i have been staring at for the last hour. so i shall. most screens are lcd, or liquid crystal display. i dont really know why crystals are involved, but it makes me sound like i know what im talking about. in an lcd screen, there are hundreds and sometimes thousands of small boxes called pixels that make up an image. Typically, each pixel is composed of three sections, each for one of three of the primary colors. as you probably know, the primary colors are all you need to make any color out there, however there are two different sets of primary colors, to be used with different applications. why? one set is the additive primarys and the other is the subtractive primarys. in second grade art class, the primary colors were red, blue, and yellow; the subtractive primarys. these were used because paints and inks and such use subtractive color blending, meaning they absorb, or subtract out some wavelengths of light that hit them, the rest reflecting into your eyes as a specific color. each color subtracts a different wavelength from the original white and reflects only one wavelength, and by blending them you can subtract just the right amount of each from white for your desired color. for computer screens, however, (also projectors, ipods, anything that emits light to create colors), the additive primaries are used, being red, blue, and green, one for each section of pixel in an lcd screen. these are different because with a pixel, colors are created additively, or shining just the right ammount of each wavelength from the different color sections, adding just the right ammount of each for your intended color. for example, you see yellow on a screen because red and green light is hitting your retina, activating some green receptors and some red receptors, which your brain recognises as yellow because it is close to the middle of these two wavelengths. also, white light can only be made with additive primaries, as you add all the wavelengths while black light can only be made by subtractive primaries, when you subtract all the wavelenghts from the original white. doesnt this mean computer screens cant create black? they do so by not adding any color, relying on the background of the screen to absorb light that hits it, so actually, every pixel displaying this text is actually every pixel thats not displaying this text. mind. blown.

This being my first blog post, i feel obligated to comply with the requests of Mr. Fullerton, and share with my loyal readers some things about myself and my outlook toward physics c. To describe my background, i would say that i have a wide range of interests, a large portion of which are science related, including microelectronics, circuitry, optics, botany, and laser physics, and a small amount of computer sciences, though i am not very good at it. the main reason i am taking physics c is because my brother tells me calculus is helpful for things, and simply because i am fond of the subject. last year, Mr. Powlin told us that c is more focused on electricity and magnetism than b, which is something i would like to learn more about. the bulk of my anxiety for this class stems from the fact that there is a lot of work to be done, something i am not looking forward to. overall, i think this year will be a valuable experience. thus concludes my first transmission.