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MrMuffinMan

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Blog Entries posted by MrMuffinMan

  1. MrMuffinMan
    Released in 1984 Tetris has been confounding physicists as to how the blocks move in the way they do. Now almost 30 years later, the secrets of tetris have final revealed. The blocks are moved using a combination of magnetism and electricity to move the block sideways and down. Unseen to the player each block has a slight positive charge and at the bottom of the screen there is eletric plate that is negatively charged. This causes the block to accelerate downward but it is only on for a few milliseconds before it's turned off in order to keep the block at a constant velocity. As the game goes on, the plate is left charged for longer which means the block reaches a faster speed. When the player presses the down button, the plate becomes negative charged again, causing the block to accelerate again. In order to move the block left and right, when the player press the left or right buttons the game creates a magnetic field. Since the blocks have a velocity downward, the magnetic field exerts a force on the block to the left or right. For example when the play press the right button, the game creates a magnetic field into the screen and by the right hand rule, the block feels a force to the right. And when the player presses left, it creates a magnetic field out of the screen which sends the block to the left. In order to turn a block, the game has to create two magnetic fields in opposite directions(one in, one out) that split the block in half(top and bottom). This creates a torque on the block that causes it rotate. Finally once a row has been filled, it completes a circuit that now has a current running though it. Behind the screen, there is a wire carrying current in the same direction and since wires carrying current in the same direction attract, the row is sucked behind the screen leaving space for the remaining blocks to slide down. Tetris may seem like it defies most laws of physics but we can see that it has to follow the same rules as all of us.
  2. MrMuffinMan
    1.) Don't catch senioritis too early
    2.) Don't wait til last minute to do your blogs
    3.) Watch the videos on Aplusphysics.com
    4.) The book is your friend
    5.) Try on the four minute drills
    6.) Look at notes from AP-B
    7.) Find a friend who knows what they're doing
    or
    8.) Teach your friends what to do
    9.) Stay ahead on independent units
    10.) Don't freak out and have fun
  3. MrMuffinMan

    Work

    By MrMuffinMan,

    So this summer I will be working for a company called Lumetrics which is an engineering company that develops ways to measure very thing object without ever touching said object. They do this by using light and reflection of light. This technology is currently limited to transparent and translucent material but it's still really cool. By shinning a light into an object, some of the light bounces back at the first edge, some passes through. The light that continues through hits the back edge and more is reflected back. This difference in distance travel creates a phase shift which can be used along with the index of refraction of the material to calculate the thickness. I don't really understand works but I'm sure I'll learn all about it when I start work.
  4. MrMuffinMan
    Faraday Cages are used to cancel out electric fields and block most forms of electromagnetic radiation. And people in today's world have used this in some creative ways. Some people put their phones in these cages so that they can't receive any calls or texts. But I was reading and this article said that a shop lifter had be caught with a bag lined with aluminum foil. This created the bag a Faraday cage so that when the person put the item they were stealing in the bag, the bag blocked most of the signal from the tag that make the sensors by the doors of stores go off when someone tries to shoplift. However this person didn't manage to get a complete cage and the alarms went off. This is just a very different application of physics than we learn in class but it's still cool
  5. MrMuffinMan

    Atomic Clocks

    By MrMuffinMan,

    Atomic clocks are the most accurate clocks we have and without them, everyone's time could be a little off which would mean GPS navigation would be impossible and other things that rely on exact timing, like space flight wouldn't work. Most atomic clocks are made of cesium and measure the frequency of oscillation. Cesium atoms are given energy in the form of heat and this causes the atoms to change energy states and start oscillating at their principal resonance which is a know value. Measuring the resonance of the Cesium and dividing it by the principal resonance the clock can measure 1 second almost exactly
  6. MrMuffinMan
    The greatly feared captain of the pirates "Schalkimnack" was not only famous for his cruelty but also for baffling his prisoners with difficult brain twisters. This is one of his favourite riddles:
    Schalkimnack took a gold coin an throw it overboard into the sea. He asked:
    "Did the sea level ...
    a) rise,
    sink or
    c) stay like before?"

    If one of the prisoners could solve the riddle, he was set free, but in case of giving the wrong answer, he was thrown to the sharks. Legend relates that until now, nobody could manage to solve the riddle.
    Now you've got caught by Schalkimnack!

    Can you solve the riddle?



    website for this riddle
    http://physik.ph-gmuend.de/brain-teasers/
  7. MrMuffinMan

    Solar Sails

    By MrMuffinMan,

    Currently the only way for us to get around in space is to use rocket fuel and chemical reactions to push the rocket around. This is very expensive and current rockets are 95% fuel by weight. However NASA is developing an alternative that uses the the sun to push the rocket around. These solar sails are made with large ultra-thin mirrors that use the light of the sun to push the sail around. These sails have to be reflective because when the light hits the said it has to be reflected. This they key because thanks to DeBroglie, we know that light has momentum and as the light changes direction it exerts an impulse on the said which accelerates the sail. Granted this force is tiny compared to rocket engines, but in space the the sail will accelerate as long as it sees sunlight which means it can go much farther without fuel on board.
  8. MrMuffinMan
    This year has gone fast. It seemed like only yesterday that summer ended and we started our senior year. This senior year has been the best year by far and now that it's almost over it's hard to realize that we're almost done. Physics this year has been a great experience. The independent units were probably my favorite units because I could do everything at my pace which was great until my pace was too slow and I found myself cramming to get everything done the last week. They have been an eye opening experience to how college is going to work because I'll have to set my own pace all the time. And even when we didn't have independent units, Mr. Fullerton taught us, but it was our responsibility to look up in book the stuff we didn't understand the first time or ask him which happened a lot more times this year than any other. Mr Fullerton might of taught us Physics for the exam, but he also taught us what we are going to have to do for college and that is probably the lesson we all will remember in the next few years.
  9. MrMuffinMan
    Real rockets work just the same as the model bottle rockets that we made for arts fest. Rocket engines instead of using water expel gases and the pressure that is used to expel these gases come from the burning of fuel.When the fuel is burn, the energy released increases the temperature of the gases that created when this fuel is spent. These super heated gases want to expand which causes the pressure to increase. As the pressure increases, the gases are pushed out the back end of the engine which because of Newton's third law of motion also push the rocket engine and everything attached to it in the opposite direction.
  10. MrMuffinMan
    A bottle rocket works because of Newton's third law of motion. As more air is pumped into the "tank" the pressure increases so that when the restraint holding the rocket in place is removed, the pressurized air forces the water out of the bottle. Newton's third law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that water exerts an upward force on the bottle itself. This is what sends it into the air. A nose cone works by cutting through the air instead of the blunt bottom of the bottle forcing itself through the air which would increase drag. Fins help by stabilize the flight via air flowing over them helping keep them and the rocket in line. Finally the parachute works by increasing the drag force caused by air so much that it slows the rocket down to a speed safe for landing
  11. MrMuffinMan

    Big Bang Board

    By MrMuffinMan,

    So I was watching an episode of the Big Bang theory and in the background of the scene i was watching was a physics equation. It said F=dP/dt which is an equation that i have never seen to before and I wondered if it was true. On the board it went on to expand the equation to F=d(mv)/dt=m*dV/dt and since dV/dt=a F=ma which is the Newton's law that we all love and know. I just thought that this was an interesting and new way to look at a very well know equation

  12. MrMuffinMan
    Anyone who was in class would of heard the great debate about a certain picture that seemed to be rotating different ways. But how can two people see different things while looking at the same picture. Optical Illusions are usually 2-D things that are pretending to be 3-D and since we see life in 3-D so our brain takes the 2-D image we're seeing and makes it into 3-D the reason why people saw the girl spinning in both directions is because she is spinning both ways, only at different times. But when we look at the picture we see it spinning one way, but girl is facing sideways, she instantly flips and starts rotating the other way. This tricks our eyes because our brain wants to continue to see her spinning the same way and the way this image is set up, it's almost impossible to tell which what she is facing when she's facing out of the screen. This picture shows how our brain sees how she is turning. And Charlie was wrong

  13. MrMuffinMan

    Mind Trick

    By MrMuffinMan,

    As Dave said in his post, our computers class has been looking at this website called MindCipher.com. On this website there is a picture that asks, is she rotating left or right. I want to see what everyone thinks because our class is in disagreement in about this

    http://www.mindcipher.com/puzzles/25
  14. MrMuffinMan
    This was our second Independent Unit in a row and although I like the independent units a lot, I don't think have two back to back was a good idea. I know personally for me I just didn't have the motivation to get the work done and I found myself wasting whole periods. This left me with a lot of work to do last minute(hence the blogs at 11 at night). Also i feel like I don't really understand this unit as much as I do the other units, which is another result of my slacking. But we'll see how the test goes tomorrow. It's exciting to think that we only really have one more unit before the start reviewing for the AP but it's also scary realizing that in a couple weeks we're all going to have so much work to do getting ready for the AP.
  15. MrMuffinMan
    F=q(v x
    R=(mv)/(qB) for a point charge in a magnetic field
    v=E/B (speed at which an object must be traveling not to feel a net force in a magnetic and electric field)
    T(torque)=NIA x B
    F=I(L x
    B=(uo)q/(4Pi)*(v x r^)/r2
    B=u0nI(for solenoids)
    B=u0*2I/(4Pi*R) (Due to single straight wire)
    B=u0*NI/(2Pi*R) (between the inner and outer radius of a toroid)

    Integral over closed surface of (B dA)=0
    Integral over closed curve of (B dl)=u0Ip

    r^=r/|r|
    Good luck to everyone tomorrow
  16. MrMuffinMan
    In a very recent movie, a certain character purple suited character said the line "this is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. While in the context of the movie, there was no unstoppable force or immovable object shown, what would happen in these two things really happened. But that the just the thing because all the fundamental forces are unstoppable and there is no such thing as a immovable object according to relativity. But what would a collision between an object that we can't stop and an object that we can't move. In both these cases the object would have to have an infinite mass that way any force applied to?this object wouldn't accelerate it at all. And so when they collided since they cannot be accelerated, the only thing that could happen is that they pass right though each other.



    ps
    What movie am I talking about
  17. MrMuffinMan
    March has always been the worst month of the school year and this was no exception. A combination of harder classes, more homework, sports and the increasing effectiveness of seniorities turned the last week of the 3rd quarter into a cram session of trying to get everything done. Seeing how I am doing these blogs, it's clear how far behind I was and still am. This has been a rude awakening as to how much stress procrastination causes and I hope that I will be able to put off seniorities until after AP
  18. MrMuffinMan
    Red Remover is a puzzle game which relies heavy on the laws of physics and breaks almost all of them at the same time. Red Remover is a game where you have to remove all the red blocks by click on certain blocks and making them disappear. This is the and most fundamental law of physics that this game breaks because matter and energy can never be destroyed and even if by clicking on the block caused them to turn into energy, there would be so much energy that it would blow all the near by blocks off the screen. In order to get the red blocks off the screen you have to remove block that are just floating in mid air that feel no effects by gravity. Once these blocks are gone, the blocks that have faces will feel the force of gravity but instead of accelerating the move at a constant speed. Also there are four planes of gravity, one going in each direction, and blocks are only affected by one if any of the forces of gravity. This is wrong because gravity doesn't choose what objects it wants to affect, it has to affect all objects. However this game is very good at the physics of collisions between blocks. When two blocks collide, the will usually continue to move, but the direction they move will change according to where the other block was heading. Even though this game breaks many of the fundamental laws of physics, it is a very good demonstration of have collision can affect objects.http://www.physicsgames.net/game/Red_Remover_Player_Pack_2.html
  19. MrMuffinMan
    This again come from MindCipher.com.

    A person is holding on to a helium balloon in an elevator. The elevator cable snaps, and at the exact same moment, the person lets go of the helium balloon. In the perspective of the person in the elevator, what happens to the balloon the moment the cable snaps?
  20. MrMuffinMan

    Physics of Tennis

    By MrMuffinMan,

    The sport of tennis is the oldest and most love sport in the world. People have been playing tennis ever since the Acient Greeks took a stone and started hitting it back and forth over a fallen tree with branchs. Granted back then the sport was much more dangerous; many an acient greek lost an eye or a limb due to getting hit with the sharp rock that they played with, but even today the physics that govern the game today with the tennis balls with fuzz that sticks to your socks remain the same. Tennis is all about redirection of energy. A ball bouncing off the ground is effected by an impulse that changes the direction of it''s velocity. Current tennis balls are usually so bouncy that the collide elastically with the ground which means there's no loss in energy or speed. Then when the player hits the ball, the player usually swings the racket(or tree branch) which absorbs some the the energy so when the player hits teh ball some of the energy is lost but the ball gains more energy coming off the racket because it gains energy from the racket that has it's own energy that is transfered to the ball. Top spin on the ball causes it to go down because relative to the ground, the top of the ball is moving faster than the bottom so, air is flowing over the top faster, which causes the air to exert a force on the ball downward.
  21. MrMuffinMan
    Released in 1984 Tetris has been confounding physicists as to how the blocks move in the way they do. Now almost 30 years later, the secrets of tetris have final revealed. The blocks are moved using a combination of magnetism and electricity to move the block sideways and down. Unseen to the player each block has a slight positive charge and at the bottom of the screen there is eletric plate that is negatively charged. This causes the block to accelerate downward but it is only on for a few milliseconds before it's turned off in order to keep the block at a constant velocity. As the game goes on, the plate is left charged for longer which means the block reaches a faster speed. When the player presses the down button, the plate becomes negative charged again, causing the block to accelerate again. In order to move the block left and right, when the player press the left or right buttons the game creates a magnetic field. Since the blocks have a velocity downward, the magnetic field exerts a force on the block to the left or right. For example when the play press the right button, the game creates a magnetic field into the screen and by the right hand rule, the block feels a force to the right. And when the player presses left, it creates a magnetic field out of the screen which sends the block to the left. In order to turn a block, the game has to create two magnetic fields in opposite directions(one in, one out) that split the block in half(top and bottom). This creates a torque on the block that causes it rotate. Finally once a row has been filled, it completes a circuit that now has a current running though it. Behind the screen, there is a wire carrying current in the same direction and since wires carrying current in the same direction attract, the row is sucked behind the screen leaving space for the remaining blocks to slide down. Tetris may seem like it defies most laws of physics but we can see that it has to follow the same rules as all of us.
  22. MrMuffinMan

    Gravity

    By MrMuffinMan,

    This post is all about gravity. All the review made it clear that I needed to work on Gravity.

    G-6.67*10-11 Nm2/kg2

    Fg=-GMm/r2
    Ug=-GMm/r
    (the negative means that gravitational potential is 0 at infinite distance)
    both of those are given on table

    g(or gravitational field)=GM/r2
    so acceleration of an object in orbit is GMe(6*1024)/(6.3*106+r)2

    velocity of an object in UCM since Fc=Fg
    mv2/r=GMm/r2 v2=GM/r v=(GM/r)1/2

    Total energy of an object in orbit

    E=KE+Ug=.5mv2+ -GMm/r= .5mGM/r-GMm/r=- .5GMm/2r

    Escape Velocity

    .5mv2=GMm/r v2=2GM/r v=(2GM/r)1/2
  23. MrMuffinMan
    x=v2sin(2theta)/g(when fired from the ground level)
    t=(2H/g)1/2
    y max=v2sin2(theta)/(2g)
    Fab=Fba
    W=change in KE
    W=Fdcos(theta)
    Vmax= urg1/2


    x=r(theta)
    v=r(omega)
    a=r(alpha)
    T=FRsin(theta)
    wf2=wo2+2(alpha)(theta)
    atotal=(ac2+at2)1/2
    KE=.5mv2+.5Iw2

    Parallel axis theorem
    I=Icm+md2
    moment of interia
    Disk= .5mr2
    Ring=mr2
    Rod(middle)=1/12ml2
    Rod(end)=1/3ml2
    Solid sphere=2/5mr2
    Hollow shell=2/3mr2

    SHM
    T=1/f
    x=Acos(wt)
    v=Awsin(wt)
    a=Aw2cos(wt)
    w=(m/k)1/2

    Springs in series
    1/keq=1/k1+1/k2...
    Parallel
    keq=k1+k2

    Pendulums
    w=(Mgl/I)1/2
    T=2 pi (I/mgd)1/2

    There will be another post on just Gravity and I did read about the LaTeX equation editor but i couldn't get it to work
  24. MrMuffinMan

    Pink light?

    By MrMuffinMan,

    The color that we see depends on the frequency of the light. Red Orange Yellow Green and Blue are the colors of light that we can see, so where does pink fit in? To find out, watch this video.



    How about that minus green flamingo
  25. MrMuffinMan

    E=mc2?

    By MrMuffinMan,

    We all remember E=mc2which we have heard about ever since we started science and learned about last year. But we didn't learn that that's only part of the equation. The whole equation is E2=(mc2)2+(pc)2 where P is momentum. If an object is stationary, it has no momentum and therefore we're back to E=mc2. Also if an object has no mass(aka light) then E=pc. So the smaller something is mass-wise, then the more like light it acts. Like an electron for example has such a tiny mass it almost acts like light. Velocity is the equal to c*pc/E. You can see that if an object is stationary, then E=mc2 and P=0 so v=c*0*c/mc2 and v=0. This shows that an object with mass can never get to the speed of light because as long as it has mass, the momentum can never be equal to E but it can get very close so pc/E will get close to 1 but never will reach 1 so v can never equal c, it can only get really really close.


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