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LMCsings

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Everything posted by LMCsings

  1. One of my favorite movies is Miss Congeniality! If you have not seen it, number one, you should, but it is about an FBI agent who goes undercover in the Miss United States Pageant. Because she is not by any means a pageant star, for the talent portion she shows off her amazing skills playing music on different types of wine glasses. The reason sound is produced as she swirls her fingertip around the glasses is due to the principal called resonance. Resonance occurs when a system vibrates another system with natural frequency. Different size and shaped glasses cause differences in pitch because the sound wave vibrate differently due to their differing frequency. Nothing better than coming across some physics in one of your favorite films.
  2. LMCsings

    Auditoriums

    cool observation Zach
  3. Hope you had fun once the flight was over!
  4. Awesome! so glad you had so much fun Marg!
  5. Since most of my life is spent in my voice studio, in room practicing or performing I figured it was time to write about some of the physics that go into singing. Recently, we learned that sound waves must travel through a medium. The medium in singing is air, so technically, sound could simply be described as moving air molecules or vibrating air molecules. One of the hardest things to master as a singer is perfect pitch and what pitch really is frequency of a sound wave or moving air particles. Therefore, when I sing in a lower register, my frequency is lower and in higher registers it is at a higher frequency. Being able to change back and forth between frequency makes for very successful singers as they can sing in both a high and low range. Singers spend years learning how to make a larger sound and a larger sound is created by larger amplitudes of sound waves. The higher the amplitude of the sound wave, the louder we perceive the sound being and the lower the amplitude of the sound wave, the softer we perceive the sound being.
  6. Ironically when I was a kid I hated heights but now I love rides and heights. So over February break my friend and I took a trip to Orlando and we spent some time at Disney. At the Contemporary Resort they have a water sports center and we went parasailing which was awesome. We got to see the whole Disney property from above. What was cool about parasailing besides the views was all the physics involved. Fro example, our parachute was hooked on to a boat and the captain had to ask us how quickly we wanted to travel, which determined our velocity and how far above the water we wanted to go, which determined our distance. It was really windy up there and that is when I realized why we needed a parachute, it was to help us with air resistance so that we did not go too fast and get hurt. Also, while we were up above I saw a ton of waves and the boat also created waves and as we speed up or rather the boat the waves became more frequency and got larger which fits with the wave equation.
  7. Over February Break my best friend and I went to Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida! We went on a ton of rides and it was amazing how many rides involved precise physics. For example, one of their biggest attractions is Dr. Doom's Free Fall. The ride takes you up a lot like the spring at seabreeze and then drops you. The ride is 200 the air and you can see it while driving through Orlando. It advertises that the ride is faster than the space shuttle. It was interesting that they call it free fall because that is technically incorrect because it does not accelerate at 9.81m/s squared according to their facts and figures it is only as fast as a boeing 747 launch which is slower than free fall. Another ride that was cool was the Storm Force Accelatron which moves you in a close dorm. You experience what increasing and increasing a centripetal force which was interesting.
  8. Last week I babysat for 3 little kids. Their Dad build them a sledding hill out a slide. I took them outside after bundling them up and we went sledding. When sledding I noticed how easily the sled glided down the snow bank, then I thought, snow and ice have a low coefficient of friction. Additionally, I noticed that when the kids went down individually, they went quicker down the hill. Because Force equals mass times acceleration, acceleration is also equal to force divided by mass. Therefore, the kids went faster when they were by themselves because the mass was less and the acceleration could grow. Lastly, The kids dad also put a ramp at the end of the hill which slowed down the sled and changed its velocity. The change in velocity was helpful because without stopping the sled could of gone in the large tree in the backyard, because an object in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force.
  9. Very descriptive! Awesome job! You included so much information.
  10. Nice post! It was very informational.
  11. I love this post, Margaret! It made my night!
  12. Skydiving sounds scary! But lots of physics!
  13. Wow Kyra so insightful and yes a lot of people complain about the stairs daily.
  14. LMCsings

    Physics of Tap

    I am a dancer and I am always surprised by the crossovers between physics and dance. For example, in tap dancing there is a ton of connections. Whenever I do a shuffle or a buffalo it creates sliding friction which makes the motion easier. Additionally, static friction is created when I do a flap or a time step, the static friction helps to maintain my footing. Newton's third law tells us that all forces come in pairs, so when I exert a force to strike my shoe, the force I exert is equal to the force the dance floor exerts on me. Also, when I want to do a step that is faster my kinetic energy increases as I move across the floor. My tap shoes need to be waxed sometimes in order to may them have less friction which the floor and make motions like turns and leaps easier.
  15. Airbags exist to minimize the force exerted on a person when a car crashes. Newton's 1st law tells us that an object is motion will stay in motion, so when you are riding in a car you are moving at the same direction and speed as the car. All moving objects have momentum which is equal to mass times velocity. In an effort to combat injury, cars now have to have airbags according to the federal law. Airbags work because they want to exert a force that will decrease the person in the car's speed to zero. The airbag extends the amount of time and retrains the person in the car in order to limit injury when involved in a crash because force equals mass times acceleration. When the time taken to slow a person's speed from high to low, the acceleration decreases and therefore the force of the car is less.
  16. LMCsings

    Physics of planes

    This weekend I took a plane to New York City. I was looking out the window on the plane and I started to think about the physics required to fly. Before take off the plane was sitting on the tar mat at rest and it continued to stay at rest for our small delay. When we got the okay to take off we started off at a low velocity and then we accelerated to a higher velocity until we were going at maximum speed. Then we took flight. In order to move up we had to be going at a significant speed and beyond the acceleration due to gravity. Because 9.81m/s^2 is the acceleration due to gravity a plane must overcome that acceleration because if not the plane would go down. The propellers of the plane helped to monitor the speed as they can cut the air and produce a decrease or increase in speed and therefore flight time. When the plane was going to land the plane decreased in velocity and the wheels popped out as it got closer to the ground. This helped to make the landing softer and the wheels took over some of the force to make the landing more comfortable for passengers.
  17. Good job Kyra! Maybe I'll see you in Disney.
  18. Over the break I went sledding and there was a lot of physics involved. Firstly, I climbed to the of the hill and put my sled on the ground, it did not move, illustrating Newton's 1st law that an object at rest will stay at rest. In order to make my sled go, my friend has to push on me. The push demonstrates Newton's 3rd law, that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. When my friend pushed on me she exerted the exact same force on herself. Additionally, the sled was able to remail on the hill thanks to gravity pushing it down, but there is also the normal force on me which keep the forces balanced. As I went down the hill I moved with increased momentum because the hill acted similarly to a box on a ramp. The higher the incline, the faster the speed.
  19. Since we have been learning about centripetal forces, it was a great time to discuss the physics of ice skating. What allows for smooth gliding on ice is the lack of friction on the ice. The less frictional surface allows a skater to glide on ice, because there is little opposition to motion. Additionally, ice skating involves Newton's 1st law because an object in motion tends to stay in motion. When a skater gets moving, they do not stop moving until the skater brakes. Lastly, When a skater is going across the ice, the skaters are pushing against the ice to make themselves move. This is Newton's 3rd law, because for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The skater is pushing into the ice and the ice is pushing back on the skater.
  20. I'm obsessed with driving too, Kyr! Very nice post
  21. LMCsings

    Physics of Sitting

    I love this post Jac, nice job!
  22. The Catapult was a difficult project!
  23. Nice post Annie, it was very informative AB!
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