Torque!!!

This past weekend I tried searching for unique instances of torque being exerted in every day life. Although this isn't a picture of me, I found and learned that a torque wrench can be used to loosen the bolts on any car tire. It is a perfect and simple example of what we have been learning in class because the wrench is long and allows for less force to be applied to create a fairly large amount of torque. According to the mechanic I talked to, certain wrenches can extend to varying lengths depending on how much force/torque is needed to tighten or loosen the nuts on the tire. There are other ways of tightening the tires, like using an impact gun, but it may overtighten the nuts and cause issues later on.

This weekend I was searching through some old pictures and I found this particular one after a game I played. I immediately knew there were physics to be discussed. The first thing I realized was that there needs to be enough force to overcome gravity pulling the basketball to the earth. However, if too much force is generated, the ball would bounce hard off the backboard or go out of bounds. This right amount of force is what most players call "touch" on the ball. This "touch" is usually what determines if the ball would bounce in the basket after hitting the rim or backboard. I also thought of the vectors of force needed to project the ball into the basket. Because the y component always equals the weight downwards, the x component is the one that varies, depending on how far the shooter is from the basket.

This past friday, I was watching the UH vs. Nevada football game on ESPN2, which turned out to be an amazing game. There was a lot of physics in play as players on both sides were getting nailed left and right. In this particular play, I remember seeing Tyler Graunke, the quarterback for Hawaii, taking a while to get off the ground after being hit by the Nevada player. It made me realize that a lot of momentum must have been transferred from the tackler to Graunke as he could really feel the hit. Because the defender's velocity and mass were both fairly high, a lot of momentum was transferred to Graunke who eventually tranferred it to the ground. Also, in the final play of the game, Hawaii's kicker, Dan Kelly, needed to generate lots of force and velocity on the football as he kicked it through the goal posts to preserve the victory. It was an extremely exciting game but I was still able to find the physics taking place.

This past weekend my friends and I went to Dave and Buster's to play some pool and video games. While we were there, I realized that there was a lot of physics going on. In pool, momentum is transferred from the white cue ball to either a solid color ball or striped ball depending on which team you are on. Because the mass of all the balls are the same, the velocity determines the momentum that each ball has. Although not all of the momentum is conserved due to the friction created between the surface of the table and ball, a large majority is. An even better example of the conservation of momentum is when we played shuffleboard. As the pucks are thrown across the board, there is barely any friction between the puck and the table. Therefore, almost all of the momentum is transferred to a fast moving puck, to one that is resting still. This reminded me of the air puck lab because that lab was also created to eliminate almost all of friction.

A couple weekends ago, our basketball team had a beach clean-up on the north shore at some beach park. We were able to raise money to help pay for our trip to Tennessee this Christmas. Anyway, while we were picking up trash, I realized that there was physics involved everytime someone threw the pieces of trash away. The amount of work required to lift different sizes of trash off the ground varied according to the weight of the object being thrown away. While I had great power because I would lift the heaviest objects quickly, other people took much longer to lift objects which were similar in weight. One of the heavier objects that we found was a skeleton of a fairly large dog. Because some players filled their bags with more trash, they did more work than the other players and parents. This was such a typical activity that I didn't initially think physics was involved.

1st Quarter Evaluation

This picture of Rasheed Wallace accurately represents my first quarter course and self evaluation because it shows a variety of emotions. First off, Rasheed is slightly preturbed by a call made by a referee throughout the course of a game. It parallels my feelings towards physics on certain concepts when I cannot quite grasp how to approach certain problems. Rasheed also looks frustrated about not understanding the call made on the court which is similar to how I feel about certain problems. However, just like him feeling comfortable on the court, I also feel comfortable in physics class. I know that I am learning new concepts and am continuing to improve my understanding of physics.

Camp Ride

The actual trip to the camp was tedious, as we needed to ride over long stretches of dirt roads to reach our final destination near the beach on Molokai. While we were riding, physics was definitely in play. First of all, the friction between the dirt road and the bus caused us to go much slower than if we were riding on a paved surface. This is because the uneven surfaces caused the weight of the bus to shift and therefore force the driver to slow down. However, if the dirt road was frictionless, we would not be able to drive to camp, because the wheels wouldn't be able to move the bus. Secondly, as we were riding, thousands of dust particles were pushed off the ground and into the air as the wheels exerted forces onto the ground. Part of the weight of the bus came from us, the riders. Camp had lots of physics moments, even from the very first bus ride to the campgrounds.

Summer Trip

This past summer, my family and I took a trip to Japan. While we were there, we visited various temples honoring various gods and ancient deities. Before entering the temple, we were required to wash our hands with water that would cleanse our hands and keep us pure. At the time, because I wasn't taking physics, I didn't realize that the droplets of water falling from above us at the temple were actually projectiles fallling at the same acceleration due to gravity. When the droplets landed in our cup, they came to rest due to the upward force of the cup. Although some of the droplets did not fall into the cup, we eventually caught enough droplets to wash our hands. It was kinda awkward at first trying to catch water from a source we couldn't see but we got used to it.

While at the park the other day, I took a picture of a kid kicking and chasing a soccer ball. This demonstrated perfect physics as the ball was being affected by both the boys force and friction from the court surface. Because the boys legs produced a larger force forward than the friction did backwards, the total net force was in the positive direction. While the soccer ball traveled forward, inertia caused it to keep moving although the boy's force had stopped acting upon it. The surface that he was kicking it on had much less friction than a normal soccer playing surface, allowing the kid to apply less force and still accelerate the ball quickly.

Airing it Out

This past Saturday I went to the University of Hawaii football game against Charleston Southern. It was a pretty tight game the entire first half, especially since Colt Brennan didn't play the entire time. I did get to observe a lot of projectile motion, especially since Hawaii threw the ball for the majority of the game. I realized that Tyler Graunke, the backup quarterback, was missing a lot of his throws because of the angle he was firing the football at. Usually to get the most lift and distance on the ball, the quarterback needs to throw it at roughly 45 degrees above the horizontal. On the first play of the game, Graunke threw a deep pass that was intercepted because his angle was much lower than 45 degrees. Luckily, he finally realized that he needed to change his throws in the second half, and put some in the endzone.

Today I witnessed something that I have never really thought about before. As I passed by the gate to the parking garage of the hospital, I realized that the gate had a lot to do with physics. First off, the gate's velocity remains constant while going up and coming down. The only time the velocity is zero is when it reaches the top, and stays there until the car passes underneath. Gravity's acceleration really has no effect on the gate as it is electrically powered. Also, the displacement of the gate remains the same from the beginning of the day, to the end because it always returns to its final resting position. I never thought something so simple could have physics involved.

Physics 101

So far, I feel that physics has been challenging but fun. Although I know it will probably get more intense as the year goes by, I think I will be able to adjust. I like the amount of homework and its difficulty because it has helped me to learn most of the concepts. I had a little trouble applying it to the test but I believe it will come around. I am excited about doing new labs with concepts that I never really thought about before. I am anxious to see how I will perform on the next test because it will be crucial to my grade. I'm not really afraid of anything that could be coming up except for the semester final. I enjoy physics and math, and hopefully I will be able to put them together to have a successful year with my classmates.

The Drop

While my brother and I were watching tv at home one day, my brother started throwing things at me. When he threw a baseball and a mini-basketball at me, it occured to me that I could use both of those objects to show gravity's equal pull on all objects. When I told my brother that they would surely land at the same time, he didn't believe me and bet me a dollar. I decided to prove it to him by showing him first hand. Gravity has equal acceleration on all objects at -9.8 m/s2. Although the much smaller baseball had a different mass than the larger basketball, they both landed at the same time. I knew that air resistance can slow down certain objects, but it didn't affect the baseball or the basketball when I dropped them. My brother still never paid me for losing the bet. Hopefully the next entry I write will be more interesting.

It's in The Game

Today, I played in a basketball game in which velocity was in the works. It is pretty amazing to me that just about every time a sport is played, physics becomes a part of the game. Especially in basketball, everytime the ball is dribbled, passed, and shot, velocity, acceleration and speed are all factors. People in general never usually think about all of th physics involved in sports and I never really thought about it until now. There were many chances to show physics throughout this game, but this picture was the clearest of them all.
As I shot this ball the velocity slowly decreased but was still positive as it reached its peak and then became more negative as it headed for the basket. The speed of the ball also decreased as the ball headed towards its peak, and then increased as it went towards the basket. This is assuming the positive velocity is up and negative velocity is down. I don't remember if I made this shot, but I do remember that we lost the game. Too bad.. : (