swingggggg

Near the tennis courts is a swing set that little kids are always playing on. The swing acts just like a pendulum. The highest point the kid swings is where they have zero kinetic energy due to zero velocity but maximum potential energy. So esentially, the heavier the kid, the faster they go because total energy is conserved and at maximum kinetic energy, all potential energy, mgh gets converted. Cool ya? let's go eat and get fat. you first

the italien job

i was watching the italien job again this weekend and my favorite part is the speedboat chase through the venice canals. meanwhile, the safe is actually underwater, and the guys are breaking it open to get the gold out. you know why they do it underwater? because gold is very heavy. and underwater, buoyant forces equal to the mass of water the gold displaces. Therefore, the net force is the weight MINUS the buoyant force. ha lighter. smart people right?

Family fair

I hope everyone went out and worked at the family fair or spent lots of money. did you notice all the physics there? on those kiddy rides, kids get in the seat and are spun around the center, with a force equal to the mass of the kid(s) and seat times the velocity squared they're going divided by the radius of the ride. The force is directed radially inward and the velocity is always tangent. Wow, it just so happens that we were reviewing that this week. Don't you love physics?

Baseball

So I was at a family party, chilling outside with my cousin and my uncle. They were throwing around a baseball and I was sitting on the side watching, laughing and listening to music. Then it was like BAM! woah. projectile motion! Now that's something we haven't studied a while in physics. The whole, x velocity remains constant and y velocity changes with the kinematic equations due to acceleration of gravity. And guess what? That was in the first question of the review problems. Physics is all around, it's important to review so you can remember all those different phenomenons going on.

MRI

This week I had to get an MRI, which I still don't what it stands for. But anyway, as I was lying down, I looked up at the tunnel thing (which is like two inches from your face after they slide you in, which makes anyone claustrophobic) and it had this weird "x" shaped hole. On the side, there was a label that said a laser sometimes shoots out of there and not look into it. It gave the wavelength of the ray (I think it was 500 nanometers). So I got all excited! I could calculate frequency, Energy of the photons, and all that awesome stuff we've been learning recently. Unfortunately, big numbers like that were too big for my brain so I fell asleep instead. But physics is all around us!

refraction

So Adeline was having a ball with Doc's laser pointer. Julia and I kept giving each other glances and cracking up. Certain shiny surfaces like the benches or glass doors acted as mirrors and the light was projected back onto a paper Adeline held behind the actual laser.

We were walking past the fountain in front of Weinberg, so I was like "Adeline! Go see if the light refracts!!" She ran and it was amazing, it did!! Julia, who was on the side, could actually see the refracted beam through the water. AMAZING!

o0o Mirage o0o

Ok so let's call the top mirror Mirror A, and the bottom mirror mirror B. As you can see, the focal point for Mirror A is on the middle of Mirror B and vice versa. so when the light rays come in, they are rebounded by Mirror B to Mirror A, come back parallel to Mirror B then, because of the laws of ray diagrams, are rebounded to the focus of Mirror B, which is on the point Mirror A where you think you see the image. This creates the "mirage"