The Last one...

Last week of Physics, AP test on Monday...All our hard work in Physics this year coming to a culmination. Seeing as this is my last blog I guess I'll just reflect on this whole year. I did not enjoy it very much. From the lab groups to the tests to almost everything, I kind of regret taking AP this year, but whatever...One more day I have to focus and it'll be over. Now to the Physics portion of today's blog, yesterday I mas in a pool so I'll just talk about bouyant force. It is equal to volume displaced times density of water times gravity. But the weird thing is that in the pool my legs kept floating up, so I have no idea why. The buoyant force must be greater or something. Anyways, this is my last blog, good luck to everyone that reads this. Wait a tick, no one reads this. Some things haven't changed. Go me!

Almost There...

One more week...dangnabit. If you've read any of my past blogs (although I'm sure no one has, or is even reading this now) you'll see I try to write about current stuff going on. The subjects might be random sometimes, but I assure you they were sparked by something that happened that week. That being said, yesterday I went to that AP US practice exam, and saw Kun Woo with a lacrosse stick. Yup, I'ma be talking bout lacrosse, deal wit it. Too bad I don't know anything about it. I do know about torque, however, and the ball sits in a little net at the end of a stick when people shoot in laccrose, right? Anyways, when they shoot that sucker, they whip that stick forward, and the ball goes flying out with a snap. In case you forgot, Torque is radius*force, and the force and radius is big enough so that tiny ball has great acceleration. Imagine if the stick were like the size of a loaf of bread or something, that wouldn't get much torque. As for the other physics of lacrossse, I can't think of any and need to finish the Mayor of Casterbridge. GO ________!

Who are those dudes? I don't know.

Physics in the Movies

Well, last night I was at the Band sleepover thing, and all night they had movies playing keeping me up, and it was cold, and all I had was a pillow and blanket. So I just woke up from a nap, and in my Physics blog, the third to the last one, I'm going to talk about some movies. Movies are no exception to the rules of physics. Talk about any knid of movie, and there will be all those elements that we are reviewing right now. Ironman's thrust blast or whatever he uses to fly is all about Newton's third law and net forces. Avatar takes place on another planet (Pandora) which means it has its own gravitational pull, but it probably has one similar to earth. Just looking at any movie trailer I can see hundreds of examples of projectile motion, kinematics, fluid motion, and what not. I am going to be honest now, though. If you are seriously reading this and are not doc, you need to get a life. I'm not sure why anyone would read this or if doc even reads this. I'm going to talk about B-Ball now. Wed, it's going down. And heat are down 0-3. Come on Heat!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Win some games!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tactical Physics

This one goes out to Tracy...Alright, you ever been playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and some douche is camping on top of a building, n00b t00bing your team spawn. And then you see a harrier, and you're like "awww damn, this try-hard probably has a nuke and is a total douche." Then next thing you know, your team is hiding in the warehouse, trying to outrun the chopper gunner, and none of them want to shoot it down. So you shoot it down, but you know that somewhere, that douche already has what he wants, and is going to wait to use it. I'm talking about the tactical nuke, based on the nuclear or atomic bomb. Seeing how we just studied nuclear fusion and fission and all those chain reactions, I thought I'd look into the bomb. In MW2, it just kills everyone and ends the game. In real life, however it is much more devastaing. First off all we'll look at the ATOMIC BOMB, it works on basically the same principles of nuclear power : NUCLEAR FISSION. Usually it is plutonium, triggered by an explosion of TNT or something on impact. That sets off the chain reaction of fission, which we know can produce huge amounts of energy, like in a power plant. A HYDROGEN BOMB uses NUCLEAR FUSION first by combining detreium and tritium, causing a huge explosion. But wait, there's more, because the bomb casing is made out of uranium, so the fusion explosion causes a fission reaction in the casing, making it a huge explosion. Of course, the explosion is not the only deadly thing about a nuke. The radiation from the nuclear particles released can totally kill people and plants, just look at okinawa. I went tot the war memorial there and it was pretty scary. So next time you get a 25 kill-streak, and have a nuke equipped, think about the millions of animals and plants and humans you'd kill with that nuke, and just don't use it. Just quit being a douche, and don't use the nuke......Tracy.....

The Masters (of physics)

That would be my lab group, "The Masters of Physics," anyways, thats what doc calls us. Anyhoo, I was watching The Masters golf tournament, and this commercial came up about Phil Mickleson and all these kids, and he said some thing like "these kids are gonna be engineers, and they gots to use math, like I use math on the golf course, so donate to my ofundation to teach kids better math." I was like, waitasec, math? On the golf course? And the I remembered projectile motion, friction, momentum, collisions, all that stuff we forgot about months ago. First of all, the driver has a lot of torc\que because of the circular swing, and it produces a lot of force. Then, through a collision, that force is transfered to the ball. The ball will land somewhere, for me it usually lands in the hole, but for those less skilled people it will landon the fairway. But it will bounce because of all that momentum and what not. When people get to this thing called a green (as I said before, I ace it all the time), they have to get this putter thing and put it. That is where friction with the green comes in and they have to compensate by hiting it harder or slower. Anyways, talking about all this golf makes me want to go to Makalena's, but that's in Waipahu and I don't feel like getting mugged today...go heat?

It's raining right now

Yeah, it's totally pouring over here in Manoa, but like anybody cares or even reads this thing. My internet is down so I'm doing this on my dad's laptop. Anyways, Sometimes when the rain lets up like it did five minutes ago, the valley looks all clear and I can see clearly whe the rains gone. Why is this? I remember from 7th grade, Ms.Finn, she told us it was the high pressure or low pressure or something like that. So I'm not really sure but it must have something to do with wavelengths travelling faster in low pressure or some thing like that. Anyways we have a test tomorrow, and Alex, if you are reading this (of course you're not, who reads this crap?) and you didn't finish the labs then I guess we're screwed to a 13/20 or something. Seriously, I want out of my lab group, Drew and Alex never listen to me...I want out.

Polarized Lens

I'm not sure if I have to write a blog this week, but I'll just write one anyways. We studied polarized light last chapter, or at least we read about it. Back in the day when there wasn't any video games consuming my brothers' and my life, we used to go fishing by his bridge place, and my friend had polarized glasses and with them he could see all the fish in the water. As everybody knows, polarized glasses pretty much eliminate glare by only letting in certain orientation of rays, mostly the light rays entering head-on, so no glare comes from the sides to get in your eyes. Looking at water without polarzized lens, there is all sorts of refracted light from all the water entering your eyes, so there is a glare, but wearing polarized lens eliminates glare and so you can see the fish...If I didn't have to do this blog this week Ima be so PO.

The first image is a regular lens, the second is with polarized, which you can clearly see into the water.

Electromagnetic Rays on a Plane

I'm not sure if I need to write a blog for Spring Break, but just in case...

I'm going on a trip to the mainland, and have an expected 20 hours of air-time there and back. Flying is a real hassel, though, because now they prohibit all kinds of liquids, sharp objects, and certain use of electronics. Especially while preparing to land, people in the plane can't use things like cell phones, radios, wireless stuff, and whatever. Not only because they could go flying when you touch down, but also because their electromagnetic waves can muff up all the sensitive equiment the airplane uses to fly and communicate with ground control, or else your plane might land on top of another. We learned about the lectromagnetics spectrum, and the waves that make up AM and FM radio. Cell phones and other wireless devices also run on radio waves, and if they are on the wrong frequency, say the one the plane is on, their communications will get messed up...Unless of course your plane allows it because it's equipment is all good, which is what a lot of planes are like today. Just don't be the guy who causes the plane to crash just so you could check on your streak...

Blog is bigger than it appears

I have lots to do so I'll make this one quick. Mirrors on car, they say "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear. Ever wonder why? Well now we know, they are convex mirrors, on both sides of the car. So next time you see a big ass turck in your mirror, just remember that it's not as big as you think. What about the rearveiw mirror? Why odesn't that have a warning? Because it is a planar, flat mirror, so the image is virtual, but you have to think that it is behind you, because if you look at it and think the image is behind the mirror, you're about to get in a crash. Know what I mean? And plus, in parking garages, since we're on the subject of cars, have those convex mirrors so you can see around the corners, and that being said, they should have a warning :"Objects in mirror are farther than they appear." Gotta go do my 3-d project.

Remote Controls

Well, I was watch ing the basketball game yesterday, and then during halftime, those annoucer dudes asked how many sequels there was to "Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark" and to vote with my Oceanic Digital Remote Control. Well, I voted three and was correct (obviously). But that's not the point of this story...the point is remote controls. How do they work? Well, if you look at the front end there is like a little light bulb, but it never lights up. Thats because it is transmiting infared lights and signals to the receiver on my Oceanic Digital Cable Box, and infared is impossible for human to see because it is not at the right place on the electromagnetic spectrum. But just because we don't see doesn't mean we don't know about it, you know what I'm saying. We know infared lights travel like any other thing on the electromagnetic specturm, in rays and stuff, so they are also under the some of the reflective and refractive rules. Sometimes, when I point my remote at the blank wall behind me and press power, the TV magically turns on. Or when I point it at the white ceiling or at the white carpet, or at pretty much anything of any color at a length. The reason the TV turns on is because the infared beams bounce of the wall and floor and furniture, and are picked up by the reciever, and it changes the channel. The only time this doesn't work is if, like, my hand is covering the remote, or my dog is sitting right in front of the cable box, then the beams don't get from the transmitter to the reciever, and I'll be stuck wtaching the same channel until my dog moves...Look at these awesome diagrams I painted.

TSUNAMI!

There was a tsunami warning this weekend (even though there wasn't really any damage). During the scare, one of the news stations said that the boats in the harbor should sail out until after the tsunami passed. The reason being is that the wave wouldn't break out in the ocean, so the boats would only experience a water level rise, not a TIDAL WAVE!!! Remeber when we studied waves and oscillation? Well this is kind of like that, except it was only a couple big waves, but just imagine it like the rope we used...if you picked a point on the rope and put it in oscillation, that point would just move up and down. A breaking wave would be more like oscillating a whip, and since one side is unsecured, the point would be snapped back and forth. So I guess that physics saved the day for the boat-owners of Hawaii. Yay!

Wait, I remembered that since the tsunami is just a super huge wave, the through before the crest is the reason the water recceddes before the big wave comes. You know what I'm saying.

If this picture don't cut it, check out the advertiser or star bulletin.

Volleyball

You know what has a ton of physics involved? Volleyball. I'm just going to list all the ways volleyball has physics. First, the serve has a collision, and there are hundreds of collisions between ball a arm in volleyball, so whenever the ball is hit there is a collision. The ball also travels in projectile motion, especially on the serve and digs. When the setter sets the ball, it has to do with a collision, but I forget what the term was, but there is more time in contact so the ball floats right up to the hitter. The hitter applies a lot of force by smacking that ball, so it has great accleration. From there it either gets dug by some dude, and he can leave his arms still, so the collision is more like a reflection, and the ball will deflect with less than the initial speed. But if that dude swings his arms at the ball, they are both moving, and with the ball moving fast, after contact it will go shooting off. That's why volleyball players gotta keep their platforms straight. Just ask Alex. And blocking is just like digging except vertically at the net. Was that 150 words yet? jeez. Enjoy these pictures that totally explain it all.

No blog this week

I swear that doc said we don't need to write a blog this week because its a no homework weekend. So if I was going to write one it would be about volleyball, but I'm not going to, and if I was supposed to it's not my fault! It's Tracy's cuz he said so!

Vancouver 2010

Anybody ever watch "The Colbert Report"? Well I do. Anyways, the Winter Olympics started in Vancouver this week, and most of the competitions have something to do with snow or ice or something of that nature. Because of that, the friction on the surface of whatever the athletes are on is very low, so they have skis or boards to fly down the slopes, or skates in bobsledding or speedskating. Since they are low friction, it takes a lot of technique and work to get good at winter games. Anyways, back to Stephen Colbert. If you didn't know he sponsored the US speedskating team on his show, and highlighted some of the competitions,like skeleton racing. In his words "If you want to experience skeleton, lie on the sidewalk and crap your pants." It is like a cross between bobsleding and downhill luge. Anyways, from starting at the top of the track, and sliding down on the ice, they reach high speeds and gain a lot of momentum. With all those turns, they need to control the centrifugal force on the turns. I'm not sure how they slow down at the end, but they do. Enclosed is a picture of Stephen Colbert, you can check out more at http://www.colbertnation.com/

TV

I don't know if you guys know, but Mythbusters is like the greatest example of the physics we are learning in class. Whenever I watch I see some projectile motion, pressure, circular motion, or some thing we learned and I say to myself "I learned that stuff!" I didn't know what to write for this week, that had to do with electrostatics, until I saw Mythbusters. They were trying to see if a magnet could pull a bullet out of the air after it has been shot. So they put like 10 of the strongest magnets in a line and shot over it, but the bullet only deviated a little bit. Seeing that the bullet was pulled down, it reminded me of the test charge and the electric fields we did in that one lab. As each magnet acted on the bullet, and acted like an electron on a positive test charge and pulled it in, but the electric field must have been weak because the bullet was only pulled a little bit. You could also calculate the projectile motion and force and all that stuff, which is what they take into account when experimenting. That is why Mythbusters is a Physics' blog dream. You can expect to here more from them laters.

These dudes are Physics GOLD.

Electrostaticity

I know that theseblogs are supposed to be about Physics in everyday life, but when I first thought of electrostatic in my life I didn't know what to think of. Plus, doc said that this is the hardest chapter, so I am not looking forward to it. The only thing that I can think of is magnets. Magnetics have electric charge right? That's why magents stick on refrigerators and are put in generators for power. Somewhere in my house I also have a shocking pen, that transfers a charge into the person that clicks it, which I think is electric. Plus batteries have charges, because they have the positive and negative sides that have the flow of electrons that produce a charge. I was just thinking...what would happen if you put a magnet on a battery? I don't know. But sometimes on TV people put there tongue on the battery and get shocked. I don't think that's true, but I don't want to try it. Hopefully we will learn some of this stuff in our labs (i need a better lab group). I just read the ebook, and printers are charged too.

Pool

Okay, I totally forgot about my physics blog until right now... Anyways a couple weeks back my family went to Hawaiian Brians for a winter break celebration. In case you don't know, Hawaiian Brians is a billiard hall by the Hawaii Convention Center. I also have a pool table in my basement so I thought I'd write about pool. A while back we studied collisions, remember? Anyways, there are two kinds of collisions, ellastic, and inellastic. Billiards deals with a bunch of ellastic collisions, as the balls bounce all over the place and collide with each other. If a ball hits a ball straight on, as we learned, they will move in a linear path. But if the ball hit the side, one will deflect 90 degrees from the other. An inellastic collision might happen if the ball is spinning or sticks, but doesn't happen in pool most of the time. This reminds me of an episode of Drake&Josh, yeah, where Josh played pool super good since he used physics or something. When I first saw that episode I thought he was a fat nerd who got lucky at pool, but now I see that that fat nerd is me, only I'm not as good at physics. Whatever, pool is lame anyways, ping pong is for real winners.

Thermodynamics in da House

I was thinking of something to do for my blog about therodynamics and all that, but I couldn't think of anything good so I just took a picture of some examples of thermodynamics in my house. The first thing is a toaster, since the wires on the sides of the toaster heat up, but they don't come in contact with the bread, it just transfers its heat through the air between the two, and that is what makes bread into crispy toast, conduction. Next was a lighter. I didn't know exactlty what it had to do with thermodynamics, but I know it produces fire. So since fire radiates heat, that is physics too. The last one is a thermos, and we talked about it in class, that insulates heat by seperating the inner and outer wall of the cup by air, or maybe even a vacum. Since there would be no air in a vacum, it wouldn't be able to transfer heat, so the coffee or whatever in the thermos would be close to adiabatic, but of course it will lose heat eventually, because if you leave out a thermos of hot coffee, it gets cold so sometimes physics is different in theory than real life. My thoughts on these chapters is that we read a lot of stuff in the eBook, but in class we only talk about PV diagrams, so I don't know anything about specific heat and all that, so I can't do the homework problems...just saying. Maybe next year Steelers...

New Year's Physics

Well, two days ago was New Year's Eve, so of course I'm going to write about fireworks. First of all, me and my cousins did fireworks at their house in Waipahu, so there were a lot of those aeriel fireworks, which have projectile motion. Those fireworks need a lot of force from their explosions to propel them up, and since they go so quick it must be faster than gravity can effect them. Not only gravity, but air resistance too. That is why most bottle rockets or whatever are shaped like cones or 3D arrows, know what I'm saying, or else the thing would explode right over someones head. I didn't do any of those fireworks, I stuck to the ground ones, but there was this tank one, where the tank is on wheels and is propelled forward by a flare, which is almost exaclty like the aeriels, except it has to fight friction and it is legal. Overall, I didn't do much fireworks, since I had to get up at 6 the next day...And school starts again in two days, Isn't that great? Go Steelers!!! (hopefully not the last week I'll get to put this on my blog)

Can you guess which ones I took myself and which one I got from Google?