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ericaplukas

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Everything posted by ericaplukas

  1. As summer is so close to us, many of us go to amusement parks. Seabreeze is right around the corner from us and as you know, the Jack Rabbit is one of the oldest roller coasters! As i day dream about being on the coaster instead of studying for physics, i cant help but think of the physics that have to do with a roller coaster. There is much to think about when one thinks of a roller coaster! The mass of the cart and the people inside of it play a major role in understanding the concept of force. Force= mass X acceleration and the mass a person usually tries to find consists of the people as well as the cart. Another factor in thinking about a roller coaster and physics is the energy that the cart uses when traveling up and down the hills in the track. Two type of energy are used, potential energy and kinetic energy. As the coaster gets higher in the air, gravity can pull it down a greater distance, this is the potential energy increasing.he potential energy you build going up the hill can be released as kinetic energy..the energy of motion that takes you down the hill. Once you start cruising down that first hill, gravity takes over and all the built up potential e­nergy converts to kinetic energy. Gravity applies a constant downward force on the carts causing the switch in energies. Physics can also be fun!! Enjoy summer and think about the physics in everything you're doing!! =]
  2. ... maybe thats why i dread working out- too much work!!
  3. ericaplukas

    Physics of Tubing

    I love tubing!!
  4. ericaplukas

    Physics of Working Out

    Next time i work out i'll definitely be thinking of you!!
  5. In the summer, my favorite place to be is the beach. Physics can be found everywhere, especially in the water. No matter where a person goes, you can almost always find physics around you. Every wave has a medium and in this case, the medium is the water. A medium is a substance or material that carries the wave. As a disturbance moves through a medium from one particle to its adjacent particle, energy is being transported from one end of the medium to the other. In every wave there is an amplitude and depending on how big the amplitude is, decides how big the wave is. The higher the amplitude, the higher the wave. Waves are a symbol of physics because of all the different types of waves there are and how many different places you can see waves. One thing that makes me wonder is how noise can effect a wave. http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2007/dec/14/noise-might-cause-huge-ocean-waves
  6. Today as i was driving i had to stop because a cop car was coming my way and needed to pass me. As a driver, it is just a procedure to pull over to the side of the road and wait for the cop to pass, then proceed on my way to wherever i was going without thinking twice about the cop car that had just passed. However, today i was listening extra carefully and thought to myself, "Why does the sound increase as it is coming towards me, but as soon as it passes, it decreases?" Thinking back to previous physics units this year, i remembered the Doppler Effect. The doppler effect is the shift in frequency and wavelength of waves which results from a source moving with respect to the medium. As the cop car was coming towards me, it had a small wavelength but high frequency and as it went away from me, it had longer wavelengths and lower frequency. Even though the siren stayed at the same pitch and loudness at all times from the cop car, to the outsiders, like me, the sound increased and then decreased as it passed me and kept going further. The Doppler Effect is not just found in cop cars but almost anywhere!! Water waves, sound waves, light waves and etc, the doppler can be proven many ways. For example, when you are on a boat, the waves in front of the boat are so compact and close together that the trail behind the boat are long waves that the travelers can see a pathway of waves. The Doppler Effect is a neat way to see how where a person can be, there are many different oucomes of how sound, light, or water can be portrayed. Physics is EVERYWHERE!! For more information on the doppler effect, check out this cool video!
  7. Its weird that we used a mirror everyday before not knowing how it really worked!
  8. wow!! you're gonna be the next Derek Jeter, Brendo
  9. when roller blading, i would have never thought about this! Great Job!!
  10. I have played soccer my entire life and not once have i ever thought, "I wonder what the physics is when i kick the ball." To be honest, I dont think I have ever asked that... ever. To look back on it now, the entire game is made up of physics and without it, the game would not even be possible. Through Newtons laws of motion, the game of soccer can become an intense, physical, and well thought out game. Newtons 1st law of inertia states, any object at rest, will tend to stay at rest, and any object in motion, will tend to stay in motion unless acted on by an unbalanced force. The soccer ball would be the object in which when kicked, it will stay in motion and stop only because a force will cause it to, friction, and of course, the earth's gravitational pull. When the ball is at rest, it will not move again until kicked. The 1st law is shown in soccer. Newtons 2nd law says the change in velocity (acceleration) with which an object moves is directly proportional to the magnitude of the force applied to the object and inversely proportional to the mass of the object. This means that if the ball has a lot of mass, it will need more force to move it and vice versa. Newtons 3rd law says for every action, there is and equal and opposite reaction. In soccer, you dont normally see this because when kicking the ball, your leg has more inertia which means the opposite reaction is not shown visibly because the leg has a lot more resistivity to move than the ball. Overall, soccer shows all three of Newtons laws. Without physics, soccer would not make sense and not many people could survive without soccer!!
  11. What would we do without gravity! I dont even want to know!
  12. I wish I could see like a bee! Good job!
  13. Ever since I was young I hated to sleep with my door open because i wanted there to be complete darkness. After the class lesson on diffraction, i now know that i am not actually sleeping in the complete dark. Diffraction is described as the bending of waves around small objects and the speading out of waves through small openings. Because of diffraction, I can infer that I am not sleeping in the dark, but the light. In my house, there is a hallway right outside my bedroom and my parents normally forget to turn off the hallway light before they fall asleep. However, when i go to bed, i just shut my door and turn off the light in my room. Since my door has a slight slit under it, this means that the light waves from the hallway can come into my room and eventually make the dark, a not so dark room and light up the room. Many people are led to believe that their eyes just adjust the the dark but in scientific reasonings, the reason why you are able to see better is because of diffraction. The light waves are able to go through the small opening and bend into my room causing it to be lit up. Now, before I go to bed, I should cover up the slit under my door to ensure that i have complete darkness to sleep in. Because of the bending of light waves, the completely dark room that i have becomes lit up. This happens in my other circumstances because difffraction is everywhere. Say you are playing a sport and the whistle is blown, but there are many things blocking you from the person blowing the whistle, you still can hear the whistle. This is because the sound waves are moving past the objects blocking you from the whistle and this is diffraction. Overall, diffraction can be found almost anywhere at anytime!
  14. Being a doctor will be very challenging! Physics will definitely help you to become a better learner for sure!
  15. ericaplukas

    Hey

    My name is Erica and i am a Junior. I obviously do not follow directions well because i used my last name in my username. I play soccer for the high school. When i am older i want to be either an elementary teacher or a lawyer, two very different jobs. However, i still have time to figure everything out as i am only a Junior. I decided to take Physics because i wanted to explore all the different types of sciences that the high school has to offer. So far i have had trouble finding any other sciences interesting but i do like math so i am hoping that physics will be more interesting to me. This year i hope to have many classes that make me wonder "How is that possible?" I am very excited for Physics to begin!:ghost:
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