FizziksGuy

Oooh, cool (get it... cool?) So then what happens when the snowball impacts its target? That's a collision, right? conservation of momentum?

I wonder what happens to the ice under the blades of an ice skate? Could make a cool follow-up blog exploration!

So what's been you all-time favorite concert for crowd-surfing?

Hi Lucy. I bet an energy approach would work if applied properly, but in part a, that's a basic application of Hooke's Law, so that would be much simpler, and in part b, since you're looking for a force, I'd go with Hooke's Law again (then Newton's 2nd). Just more straightforward...

And now I'm hungry!

File Name: Plotting Equipotentials and Electric Fields Lab File Submitter: FizziksGuy File Submitted: 16 Jan 2014 File Category: Electrostatics From Barry Hopkins at Severna Park High School "I use the inexpensive clear plastic storage containers (shoe box size) from the dollar store and a couple of 9 volt batteries. Small pieces of copper wire and aluminum strips are placed into the tubs and water in the various configurations shown on page 3 of the Word document. We eventually print out each group’s results and make copies for everyone, and they use the equipotentials to help them trace out the electric fields. If you’ve never done this before, you’ll find it’s extremely tedious and time-consuming, so I usually get them to come after school (for some extra credit) to collect the data, rather than waste valuable class time."

Wow, that's pretty cool. Sure would have been useful last night as I was trying to sneak out of the baby's room in the dark.

Also pretty cool -- the faster you go on the bike, the easier it is to stay upright, due to conservation of angular momentum. That's why new riders wobble so much -- they go too slow!

Way to go Miss Winchester!

Name: AP Physics 1 - Standing Waves in Instruments Category: Waves Date Added: 10 January 2014 - 08:16 AM Submitter: FizziksGuy Short Description: None Provided A brief introduction to standing waves in instruments for algebra-based physics courses such as AP Physics 1 and AP Physics B, including harmonics of both open- and closed-tube instruments. For more information, please visit http://aplusphysics.com. View Video

Terrific blog post, and an amazing (and entertaining) video!

How do you levitate things with sound? Blog Explanation: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2014/01/how-do-you-levitate-things-with-sound/ Youtube Video:

Great analysis, but I think most cars are front wheel drive nowadays...

Wow, I've never heard of this dish, but now I'm getting hungry!

Gotta get me one of those!

Wow, horses can carry up to 30% of their body weight. I wonder how that compares to other critters? Humans? Elephants? Ants?

Wow, neat stuff! kind of like a super-charged Tesla coil that has solid aiming!

Very interesting. What sort of modern weapons are based on similar principles?

The distance from max to max is the same as the distance from min to min, so either formula would work for the distance between them.

Typically books model EM wave functions with cosines, but I'd check your particular book that this question came from. You know the minimum magnitude must be zero for an EM wave, as it follows a sine/cosine curve (max amplitude, 0, min amplitude, 0, max amplitude), etc. I'm probably not helping a whole lot, but for further details, you may have to go dig back in the specific book you're looking at for the conventions they're using.

File Name: WS: Work, Energy, and Power in Crossfit File Submitter: FizziksGuy File Submitted: 28 Dec 2013 File Category: Work, Energy, Power Problem set to go along with the Work, Energy, and Power in Crossfit video.

Hi Lucy. Without knowing the background (level) of the text and the context this is being asked in, it's a little difficult to explain exactly what you're looking for... In a plane electromagnetic wave, the plane of oscillation of the magnetic field and the electric field is offset by 90 degrees. The wave travels in one direction, the electric field oscillates perpendicular to that direction, and the magnetic field oscillates perpendicular to both the wave velocity and the electric field oscillation. The following tutorial may help you to visualize what's going on: http://www.aplusphysics.com/courses/honors/optics/EMSpectrum.html Note that for a plane wave the electric field and magnetic field oscillations are in phase (at the same point in time they're both maximum or minimum). Therefore, you could eliminate answers B and C. Then, depending on whether you're representing your waves as sines or cosines, the correct answer could be A or D. To choose between A or D, look at the function you're using to model the waves and its value at time t=0. With a phase change of 5Pi, you'll have the opposite situation you would have at time t=0. So for a basic cosine function modeled so that the E field has a maximum value at time t=0, at the instant in time where the phase is 5Pi, it would be at a minimum (0) value, so the answer would be A. If you are modeling the wave so that the minimum value is exhibited at time t=0, you would have a maximum magnitude at phase 5Pi. Hope this helps!

Seems like a great sport for demonstrating conservation of momentum and conservation of energy, as you convert the translational kinetic energy and rotational (spin) kinetic energy of the ball into kinetic energy of the pins, doing work on them as you move them and (hopefully) drop them! Great example that will come into play quite often in the next few weeks!