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Stephanie528

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  1. So everytime I need to make blog posts I always try to connect what we have been learning in physics to my favorite sport: softball. Now you might think that there are no waves in softball but I am creative and I believe I have found some sort of wave while playing softball. When people throw a softball really high it creates a giant lob that looks like a parabola. And this lob could also look like a half a wave. And if you measured from the ground to where the highest part of the ball reached, you would get the amplitude. But of course, the so called wave would never be finished you would only get to a half a wave and then the ball would hit the ground and die. But today we learned about reflection and could be applied to softball as well. When the ball hits the ground it will be reflected back at the same angle. So I the ball was thrown at a sharp angle measured to the normal line like 70 degrees. The ball would bounce back at that same angle. So while fielding, depending on how the ball hit the ground, you could prepare yourself for where the ball will jump next. Physics can improve your fielding skills.
  2. When I was little we would always play this game with the jump rope we would call "snake". Two people would hold either end and kneel at the ground and wiggle the rope parallel to the ground causing waves to be going back and forth on the ground. And the object of the game is to jump over the jump rope without the "snake" getting you. First you would start off small, with little amplitudes. An amplitude is measured from the baseline to the top or bottom of the wave. And as the game progresses the snake would create bigger and higher amplitudes to make if more difficult to jump over the snake. And since there is friction on the ground, the poeple holding the rope need to go fast with a high frequency to make the waves actually appear on the ground. I thought I would share this game that I played when I was little and who knew that waves would be involved.
  3. A very important equation that we have learned is V=fh. The V is the velocity. The f is the frequency. And the h (which looks like a fancy backward h) is te wave length this is called lamda. The velocity of air in STP is 331m/s. How we applied this equation is questions would be asking you to find something in the equation. So for example if you were asked to find lamda given the velocity, you would plug in what you have and solve. Like if the wave was traveling at a speed of 10m/s and the frequency is 5 hz. You would divide 10\5 to get the wavelength of 2 meters.
  4. I am going to myrtle beach for spring vacation!! So I figured I would talk about the waves I will see on the beach. The waves at the beach are transverse because they move up and down. As the water moves to shore the waves move up and down. People can cause a disturbance in the water distrupting the waves path. The best waves to surf are ones with really high amplitudes. When the ocean is angry the amplitudes are even higher! I can't wait to go observe the waves on my vacation.
  5. We have been learning about waves. A disturbance is called a pulse. To measure amplitude you measure from baseline to crest or from baseline to trough. Transverse waves can only move up and down. Longitudinal waves move parallel to the wave. Sound waves require a medium. Sound waves are longitudinal. Mechanical waves also require a medium. That's it folks. Peace.
  6. As we all know the Winter Olympics are rapidly approaching, so I would like to do my entry about the physics of curling. Awhile back we learned about friction is the resistance that one surface or object encounters when moving over another. And as I understand the object of curling is to get your stone to the center, and knocking other people stones out of the way. There are also sweepers that go in front of the stone to smooth the ice to make the stone go faster. This involves friction. The more they brush the less friction they are creating. They use friction to place the stone where they want it.
  7. Last unit we learned about work, energy and power. And I noticed something when I went to the gym. I was on a cardio machine and i saw that it was telling me how many watts I was producing. I remembered in class that we learned about watts. They are the units of power, joules over time. So I guess that while I was working out, it measured how much power I had. And when I started to to faster the watts went up. I was producing more energy in the same about of time which will increase the watts as a result. Who knew that going to the gym would involve physics.
  8. Right now we are in the unit of work and power. Work is the process of moving an object by applying a force. And for a force to have done work on an object it must have caused a displacement. And also the force and displacement must be in the same direction. The formula is W=Fd. The W standing for worl. The F as the force. And the d standing for the displacement. And the units for work is joules. Power is the rate at which work is done. The same amount of work can be done with different supplied power if the time is different. The formula for power is, P=W/t. And the units for power are watts. Part of this unit is energy. But we haven't learned anything about it yet. But i am hoping to learn about energy this week.
  9. Now that the winter has arrived, ski season begins. And physics is involed everywhere in physics. Especially with our current unit about power and work. Work is the process of moving an object by applying a force. Power is the rate at which work is done. When skiing, the ski lift does work on you. Everytime you go up the ski lift, it is lifting you and your mass up the mountain. Also when people get hurt, the ski patrol does work on you. Because when you are in the little sled that carries you down the mountain, the ski partol has to pull you down the mountain, thus doing work on you. As you can see physics is applied in many ways while skiing.
  10. Last unit we learned about circular motion. And circular motion can be applied in many places while playing softball. One instance in particular is when you are pitching. I am a pitcher and circular motion is involved alot considering your arm is traveling around in a circle. If you were allowed to have you arm travel around more than once you would be able to find your arms centripetal acceleration by using this equation: A=v^2/r. You could also find the frequency aka the number of revolutions completed in one second. And also the period of your arm which is the time it takes to complete one full revolution at a constant speed. Lastly something that we talked about in this unit is that if you were to let go of the object in motion and draw a line to see where it goes, it would be tangent to the circle. You can do this while pitching. You can aim how high or low the ball will go based on where you let go thinking about tangents.
  11. The unit that we are going right not is impluse and momemtum. I have learned many new things about these topics. For example, the definition of momentum is how hard it is to stop a moving object. And the definition of impulse is the change in momentum. We also learned many equations for this unit. Like, p=mv which will help you find momentum. Also J=Fnett=change in momentum=mdeltav. All these equations can help find impulse. And it is easy because everything equals everything. Lastly i learned that momentum tables can really help you out while trying to solve problems. If you use a momentum table you most likely will never get a momentum question wrong on any test or regents.
  12. You may not know, but there can be a lot of physics involved in doing calculus. For instance after doing homework for several hours at night and you discover that you have been doing it all wrong, you might feel the need to crumple up you wrong work and throw it across the room. Doing this can I involve physics. When you launch the paper it would be at a certain degree. Knowing the ideal angle is 45 degrees you would get as close as you can to that angle to launch you homework as far as you can. You would also launch the paper at a specific speed. You wouldn't know the actual speed when throwing it. But you would be able to determine the speed based on how far it landed and the time it takes. If you really would like to know, using a kinematic equation can help you do so. As you can tell physics can be applied everywhere even when doing math homework.
  13. That's cool, I didn't know you played soccer
  14. So I've already done softball in physics before, but now that we have learned new material I thought I could show more physics that applies to softball. Projectile motion is everywhere in softball. When you throw a ball the ball will almost always make a parabola. Which is the shape of the projectiles we have been looking at in class. Also you can use projectiles when trying to see which ball will go the farthest at the same velocity. If the ball goes higher it won't go as far as a ball that's thrown lower. So this is all I have so far for physics in softball. Hopefully we will learn more and I will be able to apply physics more.
  15. New Kinematics and Gravity Lab: In this new lab we will perform the experiment outside. We could either use a rescue window or go out to the turf and drop the ball from a higher place. In this example you and your group will go out to the bleachers. You will need a stop watch, a ball and a tape measure. To begin the lab you need to calculate the distance from the bleachers to the ground. Using the stop watch, time how long it takes the ball to travel to the ground. You will need to repeat this multiple times to get an accurate representation. After using the information you collected, determine the acceleration of the ball. This new and improved lab will be more fun for the students and cause there to be less marginal error. Stephanie Mongelli, Theo Cup, Kristen Plukas and Evan Warner
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