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?

The Race Part II

Alright, last week I wrote about a car race at my cousins house on Christmas and all that. Well, there were 8 competitiors and, with my supperior physics knowledge I got second place. The race was on a wheelchair ramp, and the first part was a race down and we had to knock down pins. The next one was a race up, but the car motors were really weak, so almost nobody could fight the force of gravity and accelerate up the ramp. So what most people did was back their car up and get a head start, so that the momentum would carry them as far up the ramp as possible. Momentum also played a role in knocking down the pins, with some ellastic collisions...yeah, remmeber those? What else...my cousins live in Waipahu, and some people were setting off those bigass firworks, the ones that go boom. That is like the sound wave travelling through the air, and it is so loud it feels like it knocks you over, thats because the waves make like fluctuations in the air, so it can startle someone. My mom didn't like those fireworks. Steelers GO(ing to the playoffs?)!

A Physical Christmas

Well, for every year on Christmas Day, me and my family go to my cousins' house for a party, and the past three years there was this competition they held. They would give all the people that came their presents about two weeks before, and it is this sort of kit that we have to build a car out of, and perform all these challenges. Like who has the fastest, strongest, can make a jump, knock down some things, etc. It's all in good fun, but it can get pretty INTENSE. I was planning out my car, and I know that it has everything to do with physics. I have to pick wether to put treads or rubber on the tires, which will effect the friction and traction. How heavy to make it, because that aso affects the speed and friction and momentum to make jumps and knock down things. Also how the engine transfers its energy to the wheels, because there are different configurations, some of which provide more power for going up slopes and plowing through obstacles. Since my uncle is an engineer, and my cousin is studying mechanical engineering at the University of Las Vegas, I need to use my physics knowledge to win this competition and bring home the gold. Listening to the Steelers right now...Go Steelers!

Here are some pics of my BEAST.

Flip-flip-flipadelphia

If you've ever owned a tv before, chances are you came across the channel FX. On that channel, there is a show, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which I consider to be one of the top 5 funniest shows on tv. It is also one of the top 5 educational shows in terms of physics. That's right, I said it. In the season finale, you can watch a bunch here, they do this drinking game where they flip the cup, in an event called Flipadelphia. Anyways, it has a pretty catchy chant. But flipping the cup takes a lot of physics, as one of the characters find out. Hitting the cup from the bottom, the cup flips into the air, and lands opposite side down. We've already learned about kinematics and projectile motion, and this has to do with that, but it also has to do with air resistance and torque. The torque is what causes the cup to flip in midair, since you push the edge of the cup, which sends it into rotation. It then takes a projectile motion while rotating. Plus the cup is empty and plastic, so it catches a lot of air inside it. If all goes well the cup will flip. Yeah, who knew a drinking game could have so much physics? I would say "Go Steelers" at this point, but obviously it isn't working...

Sound Waves and Oscillation

This sunday the Iolani Bands 2, 3, and 4 have their Christmas concert where they play all their christmas songs. The only reason i thought to write about this was because Doc said that we're going to bring in instruments later to analzye sound waves or something. We haven't really gotten into it, but I remember enough from past classes to know about frequency. Like how tubas have lower notes than flutes because the soundwaves have longer preiods and smaller amplitudes. And usually, when I think about soundwaves, i think of that graph that looks like a bunch of waves, but in reality the sound waves go out of an instrument in like a circle, because sound waves are like ripples in a pool, they travel all around. So today, when you go to the concert, I'll be there too, you can hear all the different sound waves from all the different instruments, and also from the crowd going wild. YAHH!!! GO STEELERS! (fu.tracy)

Those things on the wall absorb the sound waves.

Be there...