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SwagDragon15

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  • Birthday 07/31/1995

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  1. At this point I am so beyond tired that all I can think about is the time, hence the physics of a clock blog post idea. However just as i became so tired that this idea popped into my mind and I became outrageously enthused and will make this a wonderful thirtieth blog post!! There are many methods of operation clocks utilize. These are the spring loaded, pendulum/weight powered and even more modern clock variations which i will explain later. Most of the modern clocks now utilize these next few methods for keeping time. All but the quartz watchs use a device known as an escape mechanism. This escape mechanism serves a very inportant purpose because it regulates the forces applied to turn the clock gears in such a way that they move only a certain amount per second. Regardless of its type, each click has this crucial escape mechanism. The escape mechanism works by transfering the force driving the gears to turn (whether it that force is caused by trasfering the gravitational force from a weight or the force transformed from battery power) into an oscillating mechanism which could be in the form of a pendulum, a spring, or a verge-and-foliot. The oscillating pieces work as the clock's counting mechanism and through the use of gears, the clock is able to keep accurate time. A spring loaded clock utilizes the potential energy stored in a wound spring to turn gears that are then stopped and restarted by the escape mechanism which makes the movements of the watches hands move at a certain rate. The main disadvantage of this type of time keeping device is that the spring needs to be wound up periodically or else the resulting placement of the hands will be inaccurate. The second type I will discuss is the pendulum, also known as the weight powered design. Unlike the spring loaded clock mentioned above this type utilizes the potential energy from a hanging weight to turn its gears and a pendulum assisted escape mechanism to give the clock a certain periodicity. The assisted escape wheel, similarly to the spring loaded clock, has a specific frequency at which it travels which aids in the accuracy of the clock. But unlike the spring loaded clock, a weight driven mechanism keeps more accurate time because it faces less error when the weight gets close to needing to be reset.
  2. Neutron stars are the collapsed cores of some massive stars. They pack roughly the mass of our Sun into a region the size of a city such as Chicago or another large american city. Neutron stars are some of the densest types of massive objects in the universe, at times reaching densities of over 10e14 g/cc. At these incredibly high densities, you could cram all of humanity into a volume the size of a sugar cube, giving one just a sense, even though it is simply impossible to wrap your mind around, the uniqueness of these entities. They are ideal astrophysical laboratories for testing theories of dense matter physics and provide connections among nuclear physics, particle physics and astrophysics, which have and will continue to lead to incredible innovation in our world. The strongest inferred neutron star fields are nearly a hundred trillion times stronger than Earth's fields, and even the feeblest neutron star magnetic fields are a hundred million times Earth's, which is a hundred times stronger that any steady field we can generate in a laboratory. These unique stars can and fairly regularly display phenomena displayed nowhere else on the entire planet. These include hyperon-dominated matter, deconfined quark matter, superfluidity and superconductivity with critical temperatures near 10e10 kelvin, opaqueness to neutrinos, and magnetic fields in excess of 10e13 Gauss, only a few of the simply amazing reasons why these nuetron stars are significant to us.
  3. The theory of relativity encompasses two theories of famous scientist Albert Einstein: special relativity and general relativity. Concepts introduced by the theories of relativity include: -Measurements of various quantities are relative to the velocities of observers. In particular, space and time can dilate. -Spacetime: space and time should be considered together and in relation to each other. -The speed of light is nonetheless invariant, the same for all observers. Some, and to many most of the things that the theory of relativity introduces seem absolutely insane to many of those who hear it, although as technology advances more and more tangible evidence is being gathered to support the theory. In the field of physics, relativity catalyzed and added an essential depth of knowledge to the science of elementary particles and their fundamental interactions, along with ushering in the nuclear age. With relativity, cosmology and astrophysics predicted extraordinary astronomical phenomena such as neutron stars, black holes, and gravitational waves. However those are blogs of their own, so stay tuned.:love-struck: Special relativity is a theory of the structure of spacetime and is based on two main principles: -The laws of physics are the same for all observers in uniform motion relative to one another (principle of relativity). -The speed of light in a vacuum is the same for all observers, regardless of their relative motion or of the motion of the source of the light. General relativity is a theory of gravitation developed by Einstein in the years 1907–1915. The development of general relativity began with the equivalence principle, under which the states of accelerated motion and being at rest in a gravitational field are physically identical; something to which the simple mind would simply be insane. However when taken in to deep consideration, general relativity is really something interesting to think about.
  4. This blog is in reaction to an experiment conducted recently by a team of scientists from South Korea led by Ho-Young Kim. It essentially was created to explain the physics of writing, something the human race has been wondering for well over five thousand years since scripture came into the world. The team concluded that the smaller cavities in paper have a greater capillary pull than the wider tube of the pen, but very small pores also restrict the flow of the ink. As long as the pores in the material are not wider than the opening in the minimal pen, rougher materials pull ink more quickly. This also explains why it is so difficult to write in pen on a piece of glass – without pores, the surface cannot draw ink. In contrast, wider pens have less capillary force, so they give up the ink more easily. While this explains the medium, one must also wonder about the ink that we see on said paper in most cases. In short, higher surface tension allows it to wet the paper or pillar array more effectively, while higher viscosity slows it down. This is actually surprisingly not what we had expected or what past experiments had concluded, for in those tests pores had little to nothing to do with the final results. So next time you get one of those pesky writing cramps in school, dont be sad!! Writing is a lot of work!
  5. There are two types of spin that a player can apply to a tennis ball, those being topspin and backspin. What prompted my thoughts on this idea would be my attendance of the University of Rochester tennis match today against Nazareth. As these advanced players made the ball skip and flip and kick every which way, my mind went crazy! :labmate) A topspin shot is hit by sliding the racquet up and over the ball as it is struck. By dragging the racquet over the ball, the friction between the racquet’s strings and the ball is used to make the ball spin forward, towards the opponent. The shot dips down following impact with the court and also bounces at a lower angle than would a shot with no spin applied to it. As a ball travels towards a player after bouncing, it has natural topspin that is caused by the friction of the tennis court. When hitting a topspin shot, the player is reversing the spin of the ball, which requires more energy. This change in energy from potential to rotational kinetic energy allows the player to effectively execute the top spin shot. A backspin shot is hit in the opposite manner, by sliding the racquet underneath the ball as it is struck. This causes the ball to spin towards the player who just hit it as it travels away. What is very interesting about the back spin shot and has been proven by physicists all over the world is that hitting this shot requires only roughly about half of the raquet speed of a top spin shot, for to execute this shot the player does not change the rotation of the ball. The oncoming ball bounces off the court with topspin, spinning from top to bottom as it comes toward the player. When a player returns the ball with a slice shot the direction in which the ball spins around the axis of rotation is maintained. From the players perspective, it actually seems as if the ball is moving away from them.
  6. As the Habs and Bruins game is getting increasingly interesting I want to do these blogs less and less to be completely honest, however we all need to make sacrifices :eagerness: So despite my promise to myself that i would refrain from doing any further blogs immediately regarding hockey, the opportunity is just too tempting. So feel free to skip by the text in this blog and just check out the insane hits that have ruined careers in the video below!!!:afro: I will not take any offense. Checking can be defined as using physical force to either gain possession of the puck or to disrupt the opposition's play. Most players will tell you that body positioning is most important when delivering a body check. The physics topics relating to hockey hits most directly are momentum, force and velocity. Momentum utilizes the equation p=mv. Since a player's mass is constant, players increase their momentum by increasing their speed on the ice. When a collision takes place on the ice, some or all of their momentum is transferred to the other player involved in the collision. During a hit, the principle of momentum conservation comes into play. As we all know the momentum before is equal to the momentum after, which can prove devastating to one of the players involved. :beaten: To find the final velocity in one of these vicious hits, you use the fact that the initial momentum (mass x velocity) of both players must equal the final momentum of the players (Conservation of Momentum): (mass player 1 x velocity player 1) + (mass player 2 x velocity player 2) = combined mass x final velocity Enjoy!! :wave)
  7. As we all know, Tsunamis are waves. Specifically, they are water waves that form in the ocean, where the depths of the water average 4 km. Displacement of water following a huge release of energy from, say, an earthquake or a cosmic body impact creates a wave or a series of waves that have a wavelengths on the order of hundreds of kilometers long. Although they usually have relatively small amplitudes of about one meter, the volume of water and speeds achieved by the waves are what creates the devastation and destruction we unfortunately see in our world. A water wave is a combination of both transverse and longitudinal waves. As a result, the water molecules move in an elliptical pattern, and this is what makes them so interesting. Now let us look for a moment at what makes these water walls so dangerous. As incredible as this sounds, a tsunami of wavelength 500km traveling at the average speed of a tsunami at speeds of over one hundred miles an hour in a depth of water about 4km generates about 1/50 the energy of an atomic bomb!!! :eek::eek: Considering that a tsunami stretches over hundreds of kilometers, we can see the energy released in such a quake is capable to destroy whole towns in the surrounding coasts, and since a tsunami can travel over long distances without losing much energy, it is capable of bringing destruction to far away places as well.
  8. This blog will, as many of you may have expected, examine yet another sports related topic. In this case we will look at another very impressive athletic feat, this being the serve of tennis legend Andy Roddick. Like Chara's slap shot, the serve is composed of multiple different phases, each incorporating a multitude of physics concepts in every small motion. These include the wind-up the toss and the strike, respectively. As the toss goes up, players press their feet against the court, using ground reaction forces to build up elastic potential energy. Rotations of the legs, hips and shoulders produce maximum angular momentum that the player needs to absolutely smack the ball! As the player leaves the ground, one must display impeccable timing as they transfer the potential from their legs to their striking hand, referred to by some as the kinetic chain principle. A high, confident toss made 1 to 2 ft. inside the baseline allows the server to uncoil both upward and forward into the court, making contact at 1.5 times body height. For Roddick, at 6 ft. 2 in., that is roughly 9.5 ft. off the ground. The toss is crucial, and takes time to perfect, no matter the level one is competing on. Then comes the most intense part, the strike!! :worked_till_5am: On a 120-mph serve, the ball is in contact with the racquet strings for about 5 milliseconds, moving up to 5 in. laterally across the string plane, gathering spin. The tip of the racquet moves at nearly 120 mph, though at the point of impact, a few inches closer to the ground, the racquet is moving roughly 22 percent slower. The ball's additional speed comes from both the elastic energy in the rubber, which returns 53 to 58 percent of the force exerted upon it, and the racquet strings (strung at an average of 60 pounds of tension), which stretch about 1 in. during the impact.
  9. I am currently watching the Habs and Bruins play, and might i say it is getting quite chippy! However this is beside the point, as I have blog posts to do. So i figured i would post about what is on my mind, and currently that is hockey. In this blog i will examine briefly the physics behind shooting a hockey puck and even more so examine each type of shot individually including the wrist shot and slap shot, as well as the effect of the stick type on velocity in the end. A wrist shot as you may know is not normally as fast as a slap shot and is normally used closer to go. However this is completely irrelevant. Although this technique is used to achieve the element of surprise rather than purely over powering the goalie as a slap shot may be, it can still achieve incredibly fast speeds. The physics of the slap shot include the wind-up, the contact and the shot. The wind-up phase includes the player rotating his torso away from the puck and pulling his stick up and back away from the puck. The contact phase is when the blade of the stick hits the ice, then the puck, bending the shaft of the stick to accumulate potential energy. The deeper the bend in the stick, the more potential energy that is built up and the harder the puck will fly. The shot stage is when the puck leaves the blade and the stick straightens out, helping propel the puck forward. After the puck leaves the blade of the stick there is no force other than gravity acting on it. While the slap shot may be less accurate at times, man can it be intimidating! If you doubt me I invite you to view the video below of Chara sniping at a world record velocity. While the phases of the slap shot are the same, the wind up in particular features the most difference in that the player rotates their torso to achieve maximum torque as the player un-winds and moves into the contact phase.
  10. i like birds and since my avatar is a dragon i figured i would do the physics of flying especially considering i have absolutely no idea about what else to do and I have to do ten of these in the next two days :livid:. Moving on, there are three main forces that enable an object to achieve flight, being drag, lift, and thrust. To better understand flight we should consider air as acting like a fluid. It is not a liquid, like water, but is a called a fluid because the force needed to deform it depends on how fast it is deformed, not on how much it is deformed. Drag is a force exerted on an object moving through a fluid; it is always oriented in the direction of relative fluid flow. Drag occurs when the fluid, in this case air, and the object exchange momentum, creating a force opposing the motion of the object as we can see in the diagram. Drag is flights worst enemy!! Lift is another force exerted on an object moving through a fluid, generally directed upward as you probably know, opposing the weight of the animal that is pulling it down to earth. In animals, the angle of the wings against the flow of air creates a resistance that has the net effect of moving the wing upward. Thrust is the third and final force. Thrust is a force induced in the direction of the animal's flight, opposing the drag force. To fly at a steady speed in a completely horizontal direction, an animal must generate enough thrust to equal the drag forces on it. This is achieved by the animal flapping its wings vigorously. Fly birdie, fly!!
  11. Many common materials like wood, water, plants, animals, diamonds, fingers etc. are considered not to be magnetic but are in fact very slightly diamagnetic. Diamagnets repel, and are repelled by a strong magnetic field, and two of the strongest known diamagnetic materials are bismuth and graphite. Compared to the forces created by traditional magnets, diamagnetic forces are exponentially weak, however when arranged and prepared properly, can produce startling effects, levitation in this case. UCLA university has done multiple studies and found the most efficient and effective configurations for showing levitation in action. In the first configuration here we can see what seems to be a small golden cylinder floating in between two fingers. However in reality the magnet is levitated by a vertical superconducting solenoid electromagnet at a point at which the magnet is rendered vertically stable and however unstable in the horizontal plane. Thus, the floating magnet wants to move off sideways, but is however, for this reason is lined with bismuth and therefore repels the magnet overcoming the horizontal instability and the result is stable levitation. Another configuration is shown below. In this one, the magnet is suspended at a point far below the electromagnet where in this case it is vertically unstable and stable on the horizontal plane, unlike the example above. Diamagnetic plates are placed above and below to stabilize vertically. In the case above, human fingers were used as the diamagnetic plates to accomplish for real what magicians claim to do while only producing an illusion. :wave)
  12. Carbon Nanotubes are obviously tube shaped materials, made of carbon, having a radius measuring on the nanometer scale. A nanometer is one billionth of a meter, or a bout one ten thousandth of the thickness of human air. The nanotubes have a variety of different structures, differing in length, thickness and the type of helicity and number of layers. However, most of the carbon nanotubes are formed from the same graphite sheet essentially. The differences listed above are what lead to different electrical characteristics, being either the tube is a metal or a semiconductor. The nanotubes as a group range typically in diameter from 1nm up to 50nm. Ranging in length no more than a few microns normally, modern nanotubes have been able to be produced as much longer, now being measured in centimeters with new technology. The properties of these carbon nanotubes make them the ultimate in carbon fiber technology. They are a material which provides an incredibly unique balance of stiffness, strength and tenacity, and are also incredibly thermally and electrically conductive. These differences can be seen in the tables below: [h=2]Table 1. Mechanical Properties of Engineering Fibers[/h][TABLE="class: renderedtable, width: 100%"] [TR] [TD]Fiber Material[/TD] [TD]Specific Density[/TD] [TD]E (TPa)[/TD] [TD]Strenght (GPa)[/TD] [TD]Strain at Break (%)[/TD] [/TR] [TR="class: bglight"] [TD]Carbon Nanotube[/TD] [TD]1.3 - 2[/TD] [TD]1[/TD] [TD]10 - 60[/TD] [TD]10[/TD] [/TR] [TR="class: bgdark"] [TD]HS Steel[/TD] [TD]7.8[/TD] [TD]0.2[/TD] [TD]4.1[/TD] [TD]< 10[/TD] [/TR] [TR="class: bglight"] [TD]Carbon Fiber - PAN[/TD] [TD]1.7 - 2[/TD] [TD]0.2 - 0.6[/TD] [TD]1.7 - 5[/TD] [TD]0.3 - 2.4[/TD] [/TR] [TR="class: bgdark"] [TD]Carbon Fiber - Pitch[/TD] [TD]2 - 2.2[/TD] [TD]0.4 - 0.96[/TD] [TD]2.2 - 3.3[/TD] [TD]0.27 - 0.6[/TD] [/TR] [TR="class: bglight"] [TD]E/S - glass[/TD] [TD]2.5[/TD] [TD]0.07 / 0.08[/TD] [TD]2.4 / 4.5[/TD] [TD]4.8[/TD] [/TR] [TR="class: bgdark"] [TD]Kevlar* 49[/TD] [TD]1.4[/TD] [TD]0.13[/TD] [TD]3.6 - 4.1[/TD] [TD]2.8 [/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] [h=2]Table 2. Transport Properties of Conductive Materials[/h][TABLE="class: renderedtable, width: 100%"] [TR] [TD]Material[/TD] [TD]Thermal Conductivity (W/m.k)[/TD] [TD]Electrical Conductivity[/TD] [/TR] [TR="class: bglight"] [TD]Carbon Nanotubes[/TD] [TD]> 3000[/TD] [TD]106 - 107[/TD] [/TR] [TR="class: bgdark"] [TD]Copper[/TD] [TD]400[/TD] [TD]6 x 107[/TD] [/TR] [TR="class: bglight"] [TD]Carbon Fiber - Pitch[/TD] [TD]1000[/TD] [TD]2 - 8.5 x 106[/TD] [/TR] [TR="class: bgdark"] [TD]Carbon Fiber - PAN[/TD] [TD]8 - 105[/TD] [TD]6.5 - 14 x 106[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] These carbon nanotubes have proven and will continue to prove a valuable new technology to us. Potential applications include: Conductive plastics Structural composite materials Flat-panel displays Gas storage Antifouling paint Micro- and nano-electronics Radar-absorbing coating Technical textiles Ultra-capacitors Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) tips Batteries with improved lifetime Biosensors for harmful gases Extra strong fibers
  13. Way to rope in any sort of relation to physics at the very end :eagerness: Well played DavidStack, whoever you are
  14. SwagDragon15

    CYO Swag

    Hey I'm good at this stuff!
  15. This is prolly an origional idea, seeing as I and chuck (who copied me) have both done previous posts regarding the topic. (mines the best) Nonetheless, great post midnightpanther, whoever you areeee :worked_till_5am: See ya in three and a half hours, baby ; )
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