Family Dinner

So on Sunday night, my uncle, auntie, and two cousins came over for dinner. It was just an average, normal family dinner. But then I saw that my two cousins (both girls, 5 and 7 year's old) had a new toy with them. It was one of those barbie/fairy doll flying spinners, and instantly I thought "OH YEAH, physics blog" So to work these toys, a large amount of force is required to pull on a cord, which will cause the toy fairy to spin rapidly, and fly into the air. I realized that part of this motion involved centripetal acceleration and centripetal force, similar to the homework problems we have been doing in class. So anyways, I watched my cousins play with their toys after dinner and studied the motion of the toy after it launched. I noticed that this motion seemed like a parabola, and perhaps may deal with kinetic equations, except for the fact that the toy was spinning in the air. Maybe someday later I'll learn how that affects flight motion. (something like that picture up top, but in a barbie/toy model)

MOMENTUM

So today I went to the store and saw one of those click-clack ball sets on display, just like the one in the physics room.  I stayed there a while just playing with them, testing out different heights to see the effects on the motion.  The momentum of the ball being pulled up transfers to the balls that it hits.  If we look at the law of conservation of momentum, the ball at the end of the line should be moving up at the same velocity that the first ball came in with.  Because of this, the click clack balls can continue for a very long time.  I wanted to buy them but they were a bit expensive since they looked really fancy.  Oh well, maybe next year.

Another XC example cause i got nothing else

Well this weekend I had to run a meet at punahou, and boy was it fun.  Basically half of the course was a nice comfortable downhill, but there was this one part where it was just an extremely steep hill.  So I was just cruising along around the building during the race, at a pretty slow velocity (keeping my momentum steady), when suddenly I come across this hill.  As soon as I took my first two steps up that hill, I felt my entire body slow down.  My velocity was much lower than it had been just a few seconds ago, and so my change in momentum had been very great.  I climbed up that hill slowly but steadily, only to come across a longer but less steep incline.  Fortunately after that hill, there were many downhills which was when I could accelerate.  Well this weekend was fun with class day, and XC/tennis and everything.  I tried to relax as much as I could seeing as how we probably won't get another long break for a while.  

a BOW chika WOW WOW

hello cyberspace

so today my mom asked me to take the laundry from upstairs to the laundry room downstairs.  As I was walking I was thinking about how much work this all took, then all of a sudden it hit me: Physics Blog!  I easily could have thrown the clothes down our laundry chute, but seeing as how there were lots of clothes at the bottom, I decided not to.  So since W= F x deltaX, if I think of myself as using the same force to lift the basket in both methods, then technically, I"m doing the same work, seeing as how the clothes will end up in the laundry room either way.  Amazing how physics enters our lives in the most spectacular ways imaginable.  Thank God for physics.

TEST TOMORROW STUDY HARD!  

ORCHESTRA?!

Well seeing as how I've ran out of other topics, such as running and tennis, I've resorted to talking about orchestra, and playing the violin, and how that relates to physics.  Well, everyday in class our teacher tells us to warm up by stretching with our instruments.  We have to lift them up, left, right, and even twist them around to make sure we don't pull a muscle while we play (cause those hurt).  Sometimes our teacher will tell one of us that we don't play with enough power, and she will grab our bow and push down on it with extreme force, sending clouds of rosin into the air.  Let's see, what else...  Oh yeah, often times when playing fast music, the velocity of your fingers must be very high, yet constant, otherwise your timing will be off.  Shifting up and down the fingerboard also changes the displacement of your hand, but it can be difficult to make sure your displacement is a certain distance every time.  Although the movement of your fingers and your bow can be very minimal at times while playing the violin, it takes great accuracy and precision to master such an instrument.  All other instruments also require the same type of precision in order to be played well, which makes playing music such a wonderful joy (hahaha).