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...