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.