NathanKenney

Lockpickin is a dying art, but there is some pretty cool. Generally the way a lock works is that there are many pins inside the chamber that are attached to springs, that must be pressed in to a certain pressure, in order to disengage the lock and turn the barrel. This is done using a variety of tools, including rakes, picks, bump keys, and probably most importantly, a tension wrench. The tension wrench is used to, you guessed it, keep tension on the lock so you can tell when you have properly engaged all of the pins to the proper pressure. Rakes are used to engage multiple pins at once, and are generally easier to use, while picks and bump keys are more presice, only activating 1 pin at a time. After the springs have been compressed to the proper distance, a rotational force must be applied to the tension wrench in order to turn the lock, completing the picking process.

But what about wolfenstein 3D wasn't that the first 3-d game?

So, everyone has seen lighting, and most of us even know what it is. But how does it work? Where does it come from? It all starts when charges build up in clouds. We don't know exactly why this happens, but usually the bottom part of a cloud becomes positively charged, and the top becomes negatively charged, and after enough negative charge builds up, the electrons will jump to the other side of the cloud to stay in equilibrium with the positive side, creating what we all know as lightning. The positive charges at the bottom push away the negative charges, and they are attracted to the neutrally charged ground, which is what actually pulls the lightning down to the earth.

Everyone has bad days. Some a little worse than others. But nothing ruins a day like hitting a curb, and popping the tire. Since the average tire has a pressure of about 25-30 psi, it's creates quite a force when the tire pops. The force required to pop the tire greatly varries, depending on the speed of the car, the weight of the car, and the quality of the tire. Some larger truck tires can even explode with a force of up to 12 tons, as seen in this video: Tire explosions can be extremely dangerous, but are very common among cars everywhere, so always remember to check tire pressure, tread depth, and most importantly, pay attention while driving, so you don't hit anything in the first place.

Drifting is pretty cool, if it's done right, but how is it possible, why are people able to simply slide their cars around corners? It's is mostly done in rear wheel drive cars, because it is easier to oversteer and break traction between the rear wheels and the road, resulting in a power slide. It is possible to somewhat drift a front wheel drive car, however, this is mainly done by using the handbrake to lock up the back wheels at a higher speed, in order to break traction with the road, but this can also cause the front wheels to break traction with the road resulting in a rather unpleasant 4 wheel drift, aka sliding uncontrollably. Anyways, drifting on public roads is highly illegal, and a great way to kill yourself in a car crash, so don't do it.

So, apparently Kodak decided to announce a new smartphone than nobody was asking for. The new phone, unsurprisingly, is centered around it's massive camera. But what are the physics surrounding this new camera? Well, the basic specs are simple, the Ektra has a 21-megapixel camera with an f/2.0 aperture and Sony’s IMX230 image sensor, but what does that even mean? The aperture, of f/2.0 refers to how much light a lens will let in. In general this is the largest aperture a lens will have, and it lets in a large amount of light which leads to quick shutter speeds and good low light shots. As for the 21 megapixels, this refers to the size of the image, and each megapixel equals 1,000,000 pixels, therefore the Kodak Ektra takes pictures consisting of 21,000,000 pixels. This probably sounds rather impressive, especially considering the average megapixel count on a modern smartphone is around 8 and 12 megapixels, but more megapixels does not always equal a better picture, and anything much above 8 megapixels is essentially irrelevant, unless you need to significantly crop images. Instead, a better lens will help take clearer, more true to life photos.So, now the important one, why did Kodak decide to put a sony sensor in their smartphone? Well honestly, I don't know, and maybe we never will, but i guess we'll see in the next few months if it does any good.

Kenny why did you post this like 6 times?

Alaina I strongly disagree, Xbox is way better than PC

Vanta black is a man made color that's capable of absorbing 99.965% of visible light, or, in other words, the darkest black ever created on earth. It is created by growing carbon nanotubes, and when the tubes are hit by light, the light bounces around in the tubes until it is absorbed and turned into heat energy. The invention of vanta black could possible make solar thermal panels far more efficient, with the conversion of 99.965% of light energy to heat energy. Also thanks to Wikipedia for the information on vanta black Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vantablack

Lets face it, everyone drops their phone. Most of the time its fine, but some unlucky few have to face the sickening feeling of picking up their phone and discovering a cracked screen. But why then, are our phones sometimes totally fine, and other times totally destroyed? Well. a lot of factors play into this such as the obvious are you using a case and what did you drop it on, and some less obvious factors like the orientation you drop your phone, the angle that it hits the ground, and what kind of glass your phone screen uses. Some of these variables could be difficult to calculate or measure, however, when it comes down to it the basic concept behind dropping your phone is freed fall. so, in theory when your phone hits the ground, it hits with a force mg which sends a shock wave through the phone, potentially shattering the screen. In conclusion, if you don't want to cut up your fingers every time you go to use your phone, a case can go a long way in absorbing that shock and preventing that dreaded cracking.

So, last Friday we did our first whole class challenge lab where we tried to get a ball launcher to hit a book we had to place on the floor after finding the ΔX of the launcher. In order to do this, we calculated the initial velocity of the launcher after it was shot once, since initial velocity stays constant even after changing height and angle. We calculated the initial velocity to be 4.68m/s. After we had this information, we had to measure the new height and angle of the launcher, and the height ended up being 103.5cm, with the angle at -4 degrees. With this information, we then found the initial velocity in the y direction, which was -.33m/s. Then using the equation ΔY=Vi•t+.5at^2 to determine time, which ended up being .4272 seconds. Finally, the velocity in the x direction was calculated using the initial velocity and the angle, then put into the equation ΔX=Vi•t (.5at^2 is not necessary due to no acceleration in the X direction.), and the ΔX value was found to be 1.99m, which is where the book should have been put in order to hit it.

I've been interested in engineering for years, and have wanted to go to R.I.T as long as I can remember. I'm not exactly sure what I want to do yet, but I know I'd like to go Into some field of engineering, and have an interview for an internship at optimax, so if I end up getting it, hopefully it will help me figure out what I do (or don't) want to do. I guess the reason I decided to take physics again this year is because I just really hate myself. But seriously, I really enjoyed physics last year, even though it was pretty challenging, I learned a lot of cool stuff, and I wanted to learn more about physics and the way things work. I also would like to go into some field of engineering in the future, and figured some background in physics might be helpful. I hope to get some good experience in physics, even if I do not get college credit at the end of the year (even though there's a good chance I will), it will at least give me some prior knowledge to use in college. This year I'm most excited to hopefully build catapults if that's still happening. I'm most anxious about all of the out of class work as it can be easy to put it off in favor of other class work then be screwed the day everything is used.