Halloween Humpty Dumpty

With Halloween coming up, unopened candy litters my house and so to tidy up the mess, I eat the candy. I ate some hershey's chocolate first and then some skittles. Finally I tried the M and M's and physics kicked in. When I was opening the bag of M and M's, all of the different colors fell to the floor. The impact caused many of the hard candy shell to break, sending small pieces in all different directions. The conservation of momentum tells me that the momentum of each M and M is the same as the momentum of the pieces that it broke into. The mass of the M and M multiplied by the velocity right before impact is equal to the sum of each shard's mass multiplied by its own velocity right after breaking.
Humpty Dumpty?

NASCAR

Over the weekend there were many intriguing football games to watch from high school, to college, to professional. There was even couple of baseball games that decided who would advance to the world series. What caught my eye, however, was what is often overlooked on Sunday mornings. Nascar aired for two and a half hours ( I didn't watch all of it, of course). While I was becoming dizzy because of the cars looping around in circles, I began to realize the physics that allowed the cars to move at such high velocities. Even if the cancellation of NASCAR would solve the problems with gas prices, I began to understand the thrill of the sport. All was going well until I saw in bright colors what friction looked like. Even though I know the fire wasn't fully caused because of only friction (like how cavemen started fires), friction against the wall as well as the force that it pushed back on the car with equal and opposite force made Terry Cook run from his burning truck. His high horsepowered engine allowed him to do maximum work in a little time. His truck could accelerate up to the highest velocities, which was good and bad in this case.

Da Ref

So I was at a volleyball game this week, cheering my heart out and forgetting about school when I remembered all about physics. The ball began bouncing back and forth with different kinetic energies, but that was not what I was interested in. The top referee stood above all in the gym and had a higher potential energy than if he was at any height lower. His mass multiplied by gravity and the height of the stand (about six feet) would represent his total potential energy. If he were to fall off of the stand (I wished), at the instant before he touches the ground, his kinetic energy would be equal to that of his potential energy (if there was no air resistance). While in mid air, his potential energy added to his kinectic energy would have been equal to his initial potential energy. Who knew that Newton's law of the conservation of energy exsisted in volleyball?

School bag

So I was about to miss my ride to school at 6:30 in the morning. My mind was still half asleep when I picked up my backpack from the table and placed it in the trunk. I then had a realization that I had done work! Or had I. Considering the table was at the same height as the trunk and I had carried my bag at the same velocity, I accomplished no work. I picked up the bag from the table vertically, so no horizontal force was accounted for. Now it was time for the real kind of work. I would have to spend another eight hours of my life studying and learning.

Kayaking

This weekend I had a kayaking race on the Ala Wai Canal. As the race dragged on, I grew tired. I wondered why it seemed so hard to reach the finish line, and then I remembered physics class. The force I was putting in to paddle forward was being countered by the kinetic friction of the water. My kayak would not glide through the water. In the last 100 meters of the race, my boat began taking on water. The mass of my kayak went up, increasing the normal force as well as the kinetic friction that required more force to move the boat at the same acceleration. I also learned that friction from a liquid is different from that of a solid. At a higher velocity in liquid, friction actually increases, compared to friction of a solid where kinetic friction is constant. Luckily for me, the shape of my kayak was streamlined so that less energy was required to push water out of the path of my boat.

Here's a basic diagram showing the forces on my boat. Buoyancy and normal force equals that of weight since my boat did not move in the y coordinate.

Basketball

The other day when I was shooting baskets, I had a new realization for the physics behind it. I would have to shoot the ball at a specific angle and velocity to make the ball land in the hoop. With my release point at 6' 8", the delta y value would have to be 3' 4" while the delta x value would be the horizontal distance to the hoop. Gravity also pulled the ball down at -9.8 m/s2, affecting the time that the ball was in the air. Thank goodness I did not have to literally calculate the exact angle and velocity each time I shot since the body gains a feel for it. I would also have to factor in the equal and opposite force of the ball bouncing off of the backboard on a bank shot.

Here's a game that simulates shooting a basketball with angles, gravity, velocity, and equal and opposite forces.

H.O.R.S.E.
Test your trick shot skills in a freestyle game of basketball Horse.

I'm not in Heaven, but it ain't Hell

Before I knew it, my baseball coach became my AP Physics teacher. Without sugar-coating the difficulty of the course, Doc emphasized the work that would need to be done. Although a little tough now, I know the insane scenarios that he explained to us on the first day are soon to come. Homework is not as much as expected since the concepts of some nights' homework are more easily grasped than others. As the year goes along, I am looking forward to learning about Physics in the lab by discovering in order to understand. I am willing to challenge myself in a hopefully uphill year.





Grading policies have been very fair so far. Tests and quizzes, however, seem to sometimes be do or die since the answer to one problem is used in the next problem and so forth. I have been lucky enough to "do" so far, but whose to say that I won't "die?"





The truth about Physics is that it is more difficult because of the time needed for other subjects. So here is my quick thought for Physics and school as a whole. Summer is long gone.