Music to my ears!

Sitting at home, doin my homework, listening to music. Normally not very interesting. But then I realize that the music that I'm listening to actually has a lot to do with physics. Then it dawns on me how smart these inventors and engineers must be to create my ipod or any other musical object. First of all, the only way I'm actually able to hear the music is because in my ear buds, i think, there is a tiny little membrane with metal attached to it and very close to it is a magnetic. When the ipod sends electrical signals to the magnetic, varying the strength, i guess, of the magnet, it causes the membrane to vibrate. The vibrations create sound which comes into my eardrums which also have membranes which vibrate and I pick up these vibrations and my head turns them into audible sounds and lyrics like "Aaahh eaaahh suddenly you remember! Baaeeeahhh dancing in September! Yeaaaaaahhhhh!!!!" Of course, my ipod allows me to change the volume, or in scientific terms, the amplitude of the music, however this causes the vibrations from the ear buds to become stronger and these stronger waves created not only wear out the ear buds faster, but can also damage my ear drums. Too loud and not only will it feel intensely painful, but once my ear drum blows, it basically cuts off hearing to my ears. For now, I guess I'll just turn down my volume, even though I don't really want to hear myself sing. Actually i don't know if anyone really wants to hear me sing..."Pump it! Louder! Pump it! LOUDER!!! Pump it! LOUDER!!!! Turn up your radio! Blast your stereo!!!!"

Trick Shots w/ video!

I enjoy watching trick shots. Mostly I enjoy watching competitions on ESPN when they show billiards trick shots. However, i also like playing shooting games and the guns within them. I saw this show called Wild West Tech: trick shots and thought "Perfect! Guns+trick shots= sweet show!" While watching this show i saw an amazing trick done. The goal was to fire one bullet from a rifle and hit a sharpened blade about 10-15 feet away. Not only that, but the shooter had to also split the bullet, without popping two balloons placed mere inches away from the blade. An amazing feat! Apparently due to the density of the bullet and it's larger caliber, when the bullet hit the blade, it split, but the blade was sharp enough and the bullet dense enough that it did not shatter and pop the two balloons. Then the shooter did it again! This time with a smaller caliber, so that a splattering effect would occur. This time the shooter was trying to hit both balloons, killing two birds with one stone, so to speak. This time is was much harder though, because the shooter was using a smaller bullet, when it did indeed split when the shooter hit it and because the bullet was not as dense, the bullet shattered and the fragments hit the balloons on both sides.
This show also reminded me of a show I saw a while back which asked whether a sword could cut a bullet. After watching that show and looking at this demonstration, I know that the relatively soft and weak bullets compared to a much more dense and rigid sword will get split. So maybe taking a sword to a gun fight isn't such a bad idea after all...

I really couldn't think of a good title for this...

So this weekend, I started driving class. During it, one of my fellow classmates asked a question. "Why are there advised speed limits when you go around sharp corners?" My teacher simply said that it was because if you went too fast around the curve, you would be putting yourself in danger. I had a better answer in mind. In order to stay on the road when negotiating a curve, the friction between the car's wheels and the road has to remain greater than the force of the momentum of the car from accelerating then suddenly turning. On a normal curve, the car eases into the turn and so it doesn't have a real threat of slipping off the road. However, when there is a sharper curve, the car usually doesn't have as much opportunity to slow down. So they tell you to slow down so that your car doesn't go flying off the road. If you had remained at that speed and tried to negotiate a sharp turn, then there is a good chance that the car would either start drifting closer to the outside of the road or the car would sustain some major damage, or both. Of course by combining both physics and skillz one can use these sharp turns to pull off some mean drifting tricks. Of course its too bad they never teach us that in drivers ed.

Watch me crank that rubberband...

So this weekend, I had the pleasure of spending most of my day helping out the Cubscouts with their space derby. It basically involved them making their own little planes out of balsa wood and parts from kit and flying them in races. However, through the chaos of little kids running around and adults cheering as if it were a UH football game, I realized that whoever won the race was simply a matter of physics. First was the example of the propulsion of the plane. It involved taking a bunch of large rubber bands and winding them about 40- 70 times. By cranking the drill gun thingy, the kinetic energy of motion was transferred into potential energy of the twisted rubber bands while the propeller was held. When the planes were released from the starting dock, the stored potential energy is released into the rotation of the blades of the propellers, changing potential energy into kinetic energy. The rotation of the blades also caught and pushed the air back behind it, causing the plain to move forward. However, i think a more accurate description is that the planes' propellers kind of carved or drilled their way through the air. Also I was interested in the electronic system of tracking first, second, third, and fourth places because it looked very similar to the photogates we used in class. As it turns out, it uses the same principle and was also able to measure the accuracy of how long it took the planes to fly from start to finish to the fourth decimal! I don't think any of the wings on the planes really did much considering they were very thin sheets of plastic that really didn't have any curve on them whatsoever. However, one boy for some reason glued his wings on and curved them so that they went up, kinda like an exponential growth graph. I think, though, it worked against him because this probably caused the wing to get pushed down, pushing the whole plane down, and creating unnecessary drag and resistance.

Kung Ph-u Ph-ighters!

So again, I had nothing to do this weekend besides study, study, study, and sleep. Well actually I had the last performance of Antigone on Saturday, a basketball game on Sunday, and a whole lotta TV watching throughout the whole weekend. At one point I saw this cool show called "Human Weapons". It was about all the different types of partial arts from around the world like karate, kung fu, jiu jitsu, and even savante and greek wrestling. What really interested me were the diagrams that showed how and why certain attacks did more damage. For instance, there was one called the "wrist bash" in Karate. It involved grabbing the opponent and swinging ones arm in a wide arc towards the opponent's neck and head. If hit in the right spot without any interference, all the energy built up by the swinging arm would possibly be enough to fracture their skull and even break their neck. One karate master demonstrated it by breaking a baseball bat with the move! Dang! Also, they showed a technique that involved using only one's fingers to break through boards. After training for several years to build up finger strength, all one has to do is do a punching motion, but not use a fist. Instead hold your hand almost like a gun, so that only a few fingers are extended out. This way at the point of impact, the force from the arm and strike will be focused onto a relatively small area, thereby increasing the force applied over that area. The same master was able to break through three wooden boards stacked on top of one another with just two fingers! Now that's strong!

Ph-all Play Physics

"Project!" said Mr. Duval. Apparently I heard in the back of Seto Hall (which may I note has horrible acoustics) during our rehearsal. With little less than a week to go before the start of the play, we had to get the fine details of performing in such a space very quickly. It's harder than you think though. The natural tendency is to begin yelling when you're told to speak louder. The problem is that your character is probably not yelling at this point during the performance, so that's not an option. During the rehearsal, I learned how much Seto Hall sucks up sound, literally. Almost the entire back wall is covered in a carpet like material, which I'm pretty sure disrupts the ability to reflect sound. That's probably why in the physics hall ways, you can hear an echo. The hard surfaces reflect the sound. In Seto Hall, the large space + the carpeted ground and walls + the general lack of acoustic design make it a less than perfect auditorium and not even close to a theater. Also with the music playing and the creaking stage, it's really not much of a performance area. But the lights and music and wonderful acting will definitely make up for the lack of design. COME SEE ANTIGONE!!! WED - SAT ADMISSION IS FREE!!!!!!!!

Toilet Chucking, the new olympic event?!

You'd be surprised at the types of stupid things that people do on TV. For instance, I was watching a TV show recently about really odd sports. I saw one sport where the guys basically tied ropes onto toilets and threw them like the track and field event the hammer throw. "Holy smokes!", I exclaimed when I saw them tossing toilets, "Circular motion, Centripetal force, and Projectile Motion?!" By swing the toilets in circular paths around them, they were able to build up force and speed until they reached a top...uhhh...rotating speed. Then, when released, the toilets flew into the air and broke into several hundred thousand pieces. One guy managed to throw the thing 31m! Not bad! If you've ever tried to lift up a whole toilet, you'd understand. I watched in awe at how simple, mindless, and just plain odd "sport" would have so much physics behind it. Well not really. I really just sat there and watched the stupidity of those people tossing perfectly good toilets and then spending about an hour afterwards cleaning it up. Some people just really have to find a better past time than chucking toilets. But who knows, they may be onto something....





or not.

Trebuchet Madness

So while i was working on my creative project for Brit Lit, which was a sword, I began thinking about the good old medieval realm. And then what popped into my mind but the good old trebuchet. What I realized though was that many of the things required to make a trebuchet required apply to physics. For instance, the counter weight of the whole thing is made from a bucket containing a bunch of really heavy rocks. By lifting these rocks up, it greatly increases the potential energy of the counterweight. Then, when it is released, the potential energy is turned into kinetic energy as it swings down and swings the other side up. This kinetic energy is then transferred into the sling and the projectile, usually another large rock, and it is sent in an arc towards the enemy castle. This arc obviously follows a beautiful projectile motion arc until it comes crashing into the enemy castle. Now because the rock is more dense and has more momentum than the bricks and mortar holding the castle together, it is more likely to crash into the walls and punch a giant hole in it. Because if you fired a trebuchet at a castle and the thing just ended up bouncing off the wall, you'd be pretty disheartened or just rather silly for putting something that pathetic in your trebuchet.

Ph-ootball!

The raiders played a great game on Friday at Aloha Stadium. I thought they did well despite having some obvious ups and downs throughout the game. However they managed to pull out in the end. Not to say that the game wasn't interesting, but, I started noticing how the player used the odd shape of the ball and physics to complete their passing plays. The first thing I noticed was that the ball was oddly shaped. It was shaped like a...well...football. I guess some people call it an olive shape or something like that but, it was really a very odd shape. However, the ball is made in that odd shape because it makes it aerodynamically different. Because of the points at opposite ends of the ball, it allows it to fly more smoothly through the air. This helps to explain why throwing a spiral is best. Like a bullet, as the ball rotates through the air, it becomes straighter and faster and is more likely to go into the arms of your receiver. Also, I guess with a bit more elongation in the center, it is easier to hold onto when someone tries to run the ball. However, this odd shape made it difficult to catch the ball if it is rolling or if someone dropped it. Then again, your not really supposed to drop it anyway right? There were some other cool physics things I noticed during the game like projectile motion, momentum, and of course, net force. But overall, I presume it was the skill of the player that made the Raiders come out on top!

Depth Charge on land

So whilst I was casually viewing one of my favorite shows on the discovery channel, Mythbusters, I got to see the hosts try something that was seen in a movie. Apparently the special was about using different methods to bypass different types of security devices. The last was of course, the safe. The idea that they were testing was to cut a hole into a large safe, fill it with water, and detonate an explosive inside. Supposedly by filling the container to maximum capacity with water and providing an extra boost of pressure, the resulting outward force would be enough to tear off the front door to the safe. Basically, they were going to set off a pressure charge inside a safe. Now although this theoretically would make sense, several flaws were found in this design. One problem was that the safe was not entirely water proof, so trying to fill it up provided some problems. The other problem was the concept itself. What happens when the charge explodes is that the energy from the explosion is transfered in all direction with little to no reduction in force. In other words, the explosion would not be focused enough to simply blast the door off, but would also blow up the entire safe. So everything was prepared and sure enough, when the charge was ignited, the safe fell apart. The door had been ripped off its hinges, but the roof of the safe had also been torn apart and most of the treasure that would have been the prize of any thief was either soggy or blown up.

Halo 3 + Physics = woot

So during the weekend, I played about oh.......6 hours of video games more than i should have. but one of the best times was when I started playing the highly anticipated game Halo 3. Now although it is about aliens and genetically evolved super humans, the physics within the game were actually surprisingly accurate. The game took account of friction, projectile motion, momentum, along with other principles. What surprised me the most was the apparently accurate recreation of gravity, both regular and anti-gravity. First of all, the regular gravity was really accurate. From jumps, to throwing grenades, to explosions, the gravity depicted in the game seemed very realistic. But the coolest part of the game was the different ways to reduce and even reverse gravity. Certain maps had the ability to reduce gravity to as little as 50%. If our world was like that, I could run from Weinberg to Castle in like 30 seconds. Also all of the anti-gravity weapons and tools were really fun. The best was the anti-grav hammer. It was 2 times as big as I was and whenever I swung it, it would send out a shock wave of anti gravity. This meant that vehicles, grenades, and even people headed towards me could easily be deflected with a swing of the hammer. Grav lifts, or rather anti-grav lifts could propel me skyward to get a good look at the battlefield. One awesome part was when you jumped in the "Man-Cannon" which was basically a strong grav lift pointed at a 45 degree angle. Overall it is a really great game with really great physics!

A day that will go down in famy!

Remember today, September 24, 2007, During Period 1 at approximately 9:46 - 10:27 a.m., I Kevin Jing Cheung Paul Maximillien Kolbe Duong achieved the formerly impossible....


I made Doc laugh.


=0



Why can geckos fall from the ceiling at hit the ground unharmed?
Because they have life insurance from Geico.

That's why.

When pigs fly...

Well when I was cruisin about the mall last week, I saw one of them flying pigs toys at Jungle Fun. It was the kind where the pig would flap its wings and fly around in circles connected to the ceiling by a string. Now being a budding physicist, I took a moment to think about the forces behind the pig. First of all, I tried to draw a free body diagram and it turned out the the pig required a 3-D FBD. Tension was applied by the string and its weight went straight downwards, however foreward acceleration due to the flapping wings kept this pig moving in a constant circle. I also assumed that centrifigul force kept the pig moving in a perfect circle. If there was no gravity, then the pig would move in a perfect circle on the same plane as its connection to the ceiling. But because the world sucks, it is pulled to the ground and forms a smaller circle.

* Note: Due to some technical difficulties with my phone, I could not put on the original picture, but instead is a similar flying pig with a FBD on it!

Elevator Fun!

woot! So riding up and down elevators was pretty fun, especially at my Mom's office Building! I tried explaining to her what she was feeling when she rode it. So the normal feeling that one gets from standing in one place is an upward force. This is the normal force that counters the earth's gravitational pull on you. These forces are balanced because if gravity was lower, than you'd start floating away. If your normal force was lower, then you'd start sinking into the ground. But they are balanced and you stay stuck to the earth because THE WORLD SUCKS! But anyway, in an elevator, things change a bit, as anyone who's ever ridden an elevator can tell you. When you start going up to, let's say the 30'th story of a building, you feel heavier at the beginning. This is because the elevator is accelerating upward so your normal force decreases. Therefore it appears as if gravity is stronger and you are heavier, when in fact, your normal force has changed, not gravity. This is probably similar to when you are in an airplane at take off. The plane goes forward, but because your body naturally resists change (not like when you try to wake up in the morning) you feel the drag or the force pushing backwards. Between, oh let's say the 3rd and 27th floor, you feel regular. This is because you are not accelerating, but merely moving at a constant velocity. However, as you slow down and reach the top of your trip, the elevator car slows down and you feel lighter. This is because the car works with gravity and your normal force is suddenly higher than gravity and the elevator. So that is why you suddenly feel lighter.

oooopppsss

okay so that last post was too short so lets just add this on to it:

I'm really looking forward to these new topics like electricity, and force and waves. They sound really cool, but I'm just afraid of not being able to measure up the right measuring stick. I really hope that I get better and start to understand these topics a bit more.

1st Journal... what to write?

Survived? Ha! I'm rather dissapointed at how horribly I'm doing. I mean I really want to learn, but some of the stuff I just don't get! I mean I think that physics is sooooo cool and that it can be really interesting, but I think my own ineptitude is holding back my drive to learn. I know you have to learn about the small stuff to get to learn the big stuff, but I worked hard to get here! I could have easily not worked hard and went to an easier class, but I wanted to learn physics in the future and so I worked my butt off to get here. I know I didn't do so good... BUT I WILL DO BETTER!!!!! That's a Promise to Myself!