(Or maybe I'm just terribly unathletic)
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kateh516
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As mentioned in a few of my earlier blog posts, I am on my school's varsity volleyball team. Lots of the time, we have to do sprints across our thirty foot wide court as punishment for losing a drill or messing up too many times in row. I am always the last one to finish (it's absolutely terrible). Yes part of it is a lack of stamina, but the other day while running a very long set of sprints (we had to do 12 consecutive "down and backs" across our court), I was thinking about the physics and why I might be slower than the rest of the team. Then it hit me! As the tallest girl on the team (I'm 6'2") I have the largest mass of all the girls. Objects with larger masses have a harder time changing directions. It's momentum (p=mv)!! An object with a larger mass and some velocity will have greater momentum than an object with the same velocity but smaller mass. A larger momentum means a larger force is needed to stop the object. For a larger object to stop and change directions, it takes a longer amount of time to apply the force to stop it then start it again. So, although I am doing the same sprints as everyone else, it takes me a few seconds longer because of the extra time it takes to stop and then accelerate my larger mass
(Or maybe I'm just terribly unathletic)
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Physics is everywhere. There has never been a more true statement. So let me take a minute to discuss the physics involved in a sport that I love and are blessed to participate in: horseback riding.
There are many different disciplines in the Equestrian world, but for the case of this blog, I'm going to focus on the discipline I am most familiar with, jumping. The physics behind jumping is basic kinematics. To clear a fence, the horse and rider have to approach the jump with the right velocity. If the velocity is too small, the horse could refuse or knock a rail. In a competition, both of these would result in points deducted from your score. If the velocity is too large, you could over jump the fence, which, in the case of someone riding over multiple jumps, could mess up your approach to the next jump, not to mention use more energy than needed. When the horse and rider take off, there is a few seconds where the back hooves stay on the ground, creating an impulse force as they push away from the ground. While the horse leaves the ground to move over the jump, their kinetic energy changes to potential, reaching full potential energy over the maximum point over the jump.
I've attached a few images of the movement of a horse and rider over a jump, to help see the actions I've described.
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A few days ago, my volleyball team traveled to another school for a match (which we won, even with the touch I called myself on that could have scored us the winning point if I hadn't) and for our trip home, the opposing team gave us a huge bag of apples. So as we rode the bus home we ate and then we had 15 apple cores and no idea what to do with them for the rest of our 45 minute bus ride home. An open window sparked an idea and with that I became the center for the discard of our apple cores. As I went to drop an apple core I worried about it hitting the car behind us. Luckily, my physics insight allowed me to realize I had no reason to fear. Although it looked like the apples were flying backwards, they weren't!!! Because I did not throw the apples, they moved in a straight (if we don't consider and updrafts, gusts of wind, etc.) path to the pavement below me. Due to our bus moving forwards and the apple moving down, the motion of the apple looked different than if we had watched it standing on the ground. So, due to the fact that apples are biodegradable and they won't hit another car if dropped out the window, you can also participate in an activity like this. Just please do not throw the apples at other cars or throw plastic out your window (the plastic is not biodegradable so it is littering).
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In one of my late night musings, I asked myself, "Self, what would happen if gravity pulled us up towards the sky instead of down towards the ground?" and being a volleyball player, I wondered how that would affect the game. So let's create a situation to isolate some factors to get a better idea of what some possible outcomes would be. Let's say that, for this scenario, the court is the only area affected by the change in gravity. So the fans in the bleachers are seated and the coaches, players and refs on the sidelines are all able to stand like we do today. Pretty high tech court I'd say. So it would probably start off with a bunch of players on the ceiling. When the ball was served you would have a very hard time getting the ball to reach the other side because gravity would pull it up into the ceiling. Say someone did manage to get their serve over the net (which is still on the ground), once the ball gets to a hitter, they would have to hit with a much larger force to get a kill. Their arm swing would have to be greater than the force of gravity pulling on the ball. If the forces are unbalanced and the force from the hitter is larger that the force of gravity, the ball would be able to reach the floor of the court.
The likelihood of anyone ever attempting to try this is probably very low due to the fact that it would make the game about 10000 times harder unless they changed some more variables of the scenario. It's an interesting idea to consider though, how a change in the direction of gravity would affect our daily lives. Especially when some variables of life are kept the same.
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Around school I'm probably known as "that really tall girl who rides horses" which is really a pretty accurate description of me. It does leave out some other things that are an essential part of who I am. I love the two classes I am the worst in: Physics and Math. I love history. AP European has been my favorite history class that I've taken so far, but I also enjoy learning about local history in my free time. I've been playing violin for almost 14 years now and play in my school's orchestra. As stated above, I ride horses which is my true passion in life and is something that will shape where I go in the future. I use my mentioned height to help my team out on the volleyball court. I decided to take AP Physics C for a few reasons. I took AP Physics 1 last year and loved it. I've always enjoyed science but Physics is by far my favorite. So why wouldn't I continue taking a class that I love? I also think that it is a class that will influence what kind of career and college major I decide to pursue. I hope this class will make me a better learner and a harder worker. I know that it will be a very challenging class, but along the way I hope the challenge will teach me the skills I need in college and life to successfully tackle challenging situations. I think I'm mostly excited for the extended learning that I will be getting. Hopefully, this class will expand upon the topics we learned last year to give me a better understanding of them. I think that the scariest part of this class will be the self-motivation I will need to accomplish my end goal: a 4 or higher on the AP exam. I will really need to motivate myself to do the learning required to be "good" at physics. I know that sometimes I get lazy with schoolwork, especially when the work gets more challenging, and I don't want that to happen to me this year. Along with this, of course I am worried about failing tests. It comes with the territory of the class, so I know that when I fail I should use it as a motivator to go back and learn the material more. Overall, I can't wait to see where this year takes me. I get the feeling that this is going to be a great year!
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