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TheNightKing

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Everything posted by TheNightKing

  1. Batman should be dead. Rate 5 stars and I'll tell you why. I'm waiting.... Okay cool thanks. Just kidding. It's because of his cape! Do you really think batman would be able to survive a leap off of a skyscraper? Let's find out. A group of students from the University of Leicester did an actual experiment using mathematical simulations. They give a wingspan estimate of 15 feet. An average skyscraper is 492 feet high. When an electrical charge is sent through batman's cape in Batman Begins, it turns into a rigid glider. It was calculated that he would travel a total distance of 1,148 feet. That's cool and all, but how would he land? What speed would he reach? The students calculated that he'd reach a top speed of 68 mph, and land at 50 mph. If you think he'll be okay, the students reason that you should "consider impact with a car traveling at these speeds." New movie idea: Batman is the new Flat Stanley.
  2. This massive Navy rig is typically 1000 ft long by 300 ft wide, weighing in at 100,000 tons! How in the world does it stay afloat? Good question, lets learn. First things first. The process used to keep an object afloat is displacement. The hull, or bottom of this large ship is designed to displace a volume of water that weighs more than the entire ship itself. How? Even though the carrier is made with heavy things, it's like a enormous iron, steel, and cement balloon. There is enough air inside of the aircraft carrier that it weighs less than a similar volume of water, causing it to stay afloat. Air and open space is the key to buoyancy. Who knew such a mind bending object could be explained with simple physics? Thanks for tuning in!
  3. Why does it seem like the first half of the year literally flew by so fast?
  4. I haven't heard from any of my colleges yet
  5. Yeah I agree, math comes to me a whole lot easier than physics does, which is what makes physics frustratingly fun!
  6. I've read about this before! It's shocking to actually think about if it were true.
  7. I've never tried this before but all the sudden I have a very strong urge to...
  8. Survival of the fittest- banana version. Love me some bananas!
  9. TheNightKing

    Green

    My even more favorite color now for these very reasons!
  10. I think I've watched every video they've made. Glad to find a fellow SlowMoGuys-watcher!
  11. I relate 100%. Getting better but not there yet.
  12. This class has shown me multiple times that I'm not doing enough preparation or work to succeed. It's no ordinary class where if you just put minimal effort in you will be crushed. I've learned that the hard way. I've never been more thankful for grade buffers like web assign or these blog posts, and even then I'm still procrastinating. However, one must fail in order to succeed. I strongly believe that applies to me right now. I didn't put the effort in first semester and was surprised that the class actually beat me to a pulp instead of cruising along senior year. But I've now learned from my mistakes. Stick to the schedule, put the work in, don't make up excuses to procrastinate. I'm motivated to step it up a notch and end off the second half of the year with a bang.
  13. I've always wanted to use a boomerang and see it somehow curve and come right back to me. As of right now, all I can do is explain the physics behind it to whoever is reading. Main components involve aerodynamic lift and gyroscopic precession. In this case I will be talking about the traditional-shaped boomerang: Anyways. When thrown from one end, the top end instantly has a higher airspeed. The boomerang itself is crafted with whats called an airfoil. The airfoil is a curved shape, if you took a cross section of the boomerang, that allows for lift and drag to act upon the boomerang. This then causes the toy to 'fly' in the direction thrown, but the higher lift on the top end creates a torque, thus causing the angular momentum to gradually shift and causes the boomerang to curve mid-flight. And the amazing part is that it is supposed to end up pretty close to where you threw it from. Crazy cool physics!
  14. Yes the video is fake! However, the magic act of pulling the tablecloth out from under the settings was very real and a 'fun' at-home experiment! It's a trick of inertia and friction. Heavier plates are easier to perform with because they have more inertia (tendency to stay put). Also, a slippery cloth with no hems or edges is best to use because it reduces the force of friction on the table settings. Pull down, not out. This lets it come off all at once along the edge. Ta-da! Just like that, you're now a magician.
  15. The game of momentum. The heavier the ball, the greater the momentum of that ball. The faster you throw it down the lane, the more momentum it carries. The lane of the bowling alley is designed to be as friction-less as possible, making the ball 'slip' although professionals can really put spin on the ball after years of practice. Isn't it the worst when you hit the right spot on the pins and you're 99% sure you're gonna get a strike, the pins go flying, you're all excited, and then... there's either a split of two pins or one random pin left. The cruel game of bowling has played a trick on you. somehow the angle at which you hit the first pin didn't line up with the last pin in the row, and your hopes and dreams shatter. But then there's the beautiful scene of the ball hitting that perfect spot, all pins go flying into the chute, and the big 'X' pops up on the scorecard. That's what fuels an addiction for bowling.
  16. The guy shoots webs everywhere and yet is one of the most popular superheroes worldwide. That web must be pretty strong in order to hold him up, theoretically speaking, I wonder what kind of physics go into it? No. Peter Parker doesn't shoot webs out of holes in his wrists. He made devices that shoot them. But how strong are they actually? We can solve this using the momentum principle and a scene where his webs catch a car and slow it down to a stop. Let's say the car weighs 2000kg, and he slowed it down in 1 second to rest. Through calculations of initial and final momentum, the web would have a tension of 39,200 Newtons. Just as a comparison, a steel cable's maximum tensile strength is only 6,503 Newtons. It's all in the suit, folks.(just kidding he gets bit by a spider and has super powers but the suit helps too).
  17. Have you ever rubbed an object, say a balloon, in your hair and then held it next to a running faucet to find that the water actually bends towards the balloon? That fun yet simple experiment describes the fundamentals of electric charge! Electrons have a negative charge. When you rub the balloon on your hair, those electrons collect onto the balloon, thus causing the balloon to hold a negative charge. Negatives attract towards neutral and positive things, so when the negatively charged balloon is held close to the positively charged water, the water attracts towards the balloon, bending like magic!
  18. Two paper plates. One pencil. Six pennies. Tape. Task: make a top. No further instructions nor help was given. We were left with our minds and hands to create this device. At the end of the activity we were given two questions to answer in a blog. 1.How did today's opening activity relate to the engineering design process? The engineering design process involves designing, building, testing, and reflecting. This relates to what we did in class because first we brainstormed solutions to the task, and then we built, tested, and rebuild based on the results of our tests. For example, we tried moving the pennies farther from the center of the plate, we experimented with moving the plates farther up and down the pencil. We accidentally poked a hole through the plates that was off-center and caused us to start over from square one with the other plate. Near the end of the activity, I snapped the pencil in half based off of an educated guess and the 'top' worked perfectly! 2. How did today's opening activity relate to moment of inertia and angular momentum? Moment of Inertia involves masses and the distance from the centers at which they lay (penny placement). Also poking the hole in a plate through the direct center was important because the moment of inertia would be inconsistent. Due to varied radii. Angular momentum is also important because friction is a thing. We had to increase the angular momentum so it takes longer for friction to stop the top. To do this we increased the moment of inertia by making the pennies farther from the center point on the plate which led to higher success.
  19. This thing above may seem like a rad caster-board on the outside, but moving it involves crazy amounts of physics. The main component is its caster wheels. Notice how they are on an angle compared to normal wheels. There is a reason for this. The angle causes friction-through newtons 3rd law (every force has an equal and opposite force)- to act forward on the ripstik. However, in order to propel the board, a torque motion must cause the rear end of the board to rotate in the opposite direction of the front end. This creates the friction that causes the board to move as a whole. The tricky part is staying balanced by using the center of mass.
  20. Like, foam foam? Or.. Styrofoam? No and no. Quantum foam. It's safe to say empty space is- empty. Right? Wrong. The universe can't tolerate that which is why particles are constantly popping into and out of existence all over the place. They’re called virtual particles, but they are proven to be very real. The catch is that they exist for only a fraction of a second, which is long enough to break some fundamental laws of physics but quick enough that this doesn’t actually matter. For instance, say you stole something from a store, but put it back on the shelf half a second later. You broke a rule but, in the end it doesn't effect anything. Reminding them of the shifting bubbles in the head of a soft drink, scientists have respectively named this phenomenon ‘quantum foam.'
  21. Super fun yet super tiring: jumping rope! Not to mention pretty difficult to get down. It actually takes quite a bit of physics you might not have thought of in order to time that jump perfectly and keep going. First and foremost, jumping. Gravity forces you to have to jump up and over the rope as it swings under, otherwise the rope would whip your legs, probably leaving some red marks. It pulls the jumper down in between jumps so the cycle can continue. So what about the rope? How come it doesn't hit you in the back of the head when it's on the top of its rhythm? That's due to a centrifugal force, pushing outwards, caused by the circling of the jumper's wrists, which keeps the rope in a uniform circular motion. Generally, to get the timing of your jump to be spot on, you should jump when the rope is at eye level, on its way down. Just try to maintain a constant speed and practice makes perfect!
  22. That's a whole lotta math! Well, you know what they say... gotta catch em all. Or in this case, Gotta catch all of em, meaning all of this ginormous baby powder beast into a tiny pokeball.
  23. Oh no.. I posted about the same thing and only now just realized. Oops again!
  24. It would be so cool to work here one day.
  25. Hm... Still sounds like a waste of money to me! Just joking
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