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HannahG

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Blog Entries posted by HannahG

  1. HannahG
    Like some others, I personally cannot sleep unless it is completely dark in my bedroom. However with the placement of my bed in a dark area of my room, I'm surprised to find that I cannot sleep because there is still light shining on my bed. But why is there still light if the window in my bedroom is behind my bed, next to a wall? Shouldn't the light be blocked by the barrier? No! The light from the window still shines on to my bed, despite the wall barrier and placement of the bed and window, because there is a diffraction of the light waves.

    Diffraction occurs when light waves move past the edge of the barrier, bending the stream of light to another area. In my case, the light from my window was diffracting out past the wall barrier and around to the area where my bed is placed. The amount of diffraction of a light wave depends on both the wavelength of the wave and the size of the space the wave is traveling around. Because the wavelength of the light is constant and it is moving around a large space in my room, there is little diffraction.

    Based on my research on diffraction, there is not much I can do about lessening the light shining onto my bed in my bedroom. Even if I were to make the space that the light waves pass through smaller, diffraction would still occur. However, I did learn what causes diffraction and what effects the amount it gives off. It seems that my only solution is to get some very good, very strong curtains!
  2. HannahG

    The Doppler Effect

    By HannahG,

    This week at The Lilac Festival, my mother and I experienced loads of different noises all at the same time. With loads of security, we heard lots of sirens passing us, creating the Doppler Effect. The Doppler Effect is the shift of frequency of a wave when a source moves past.

    As a source with sound, such as a police car or security car, moves towards you, the frequency is smaller, which creates more of a high pitched sound. While moving, the frequency then begins to increase and after it passes you, the frequency is larger, making a lower sound.

    To the human ear, the frequency increases quickly with the source, so the sound sounds like "neeeowwww." With so much chaos and Doppler Effect at the lilac festival, my mom and I decided to give our ears a break and go home early.
  3. HannahG
    In today's news, young physicists at Irondequoit High School have miraculously calculated the acceleration due to gravity, g. These young physicists found their data by experimenting with a ball. First, the students dropped the same ball three times, recording the time it took to travel to the ground. They recorded their data in an organized table to keep track of each trial. The Physicists then took the average of the different trials of times and plugged the average into the equation d=vit+1/2at^2. By plugging the data into the equation, they found that the acceleration due to gravity was 10.1 meters per second squared. These fabulous physicists only had a three percent experimental error, their results only .2 meters per second off from the data. These physicists did wonderful work and everyone is very impressed. Another success for Irondequoit High School.:victorious:

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