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!