Physica Scientia

Where Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted

[taylorgangorphysics-blog]

Sad

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#BeastlyPhysics #IPHP

[all-thats-interesting]

The Wave: Utah's Beautiful Butte

Located in the area of the Paria Canyon-Vermillion Cliffs Wilderness on the Utah/Arizona border, the Wave is a multi-colored chute that has been cut into a sandstone mountain.

[wolf-teeth]

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Mechanical Advantage is a very well demonstrated by this cartoon, which depicts the relationship between exerted force, the resistance force, and the distance moved; all of which are components of the formulas we have learned over the last few classes for Actual and Ideal Mechanical Advantage: AMA= Force(out)/ Force(in); IMA = Distance(in)/ Distance (out).

[letsgetphysical13-blog-blog]

Christmas Physics

We were putting up our Christmas tree today, and the most important thing I could find to think about was, of course, physics. I imagined how much easier it would have been to lift the tree up if we had a pulley system which would reduce the necessary force by increasing the distance that we pulled. Physics is very important to the Christmas spirit, there’s no way Santa could deliver all those presents without clever use of the laws of gravity.

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I always knew Santa knew something we didn't... But now that we've been enlightened of physics we're onto his operation.

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Golf & Physics

While discussing graphite golf shafts with my father this morning I came to a realization about the work that goes into these devices. It became apparent to me that a shaft's "flex" value (which, just as it sounds, is the tendency to bend during a swing) is trying to maximize Actual Mechanical Advantage. The flex value's main function is to allow players with various swing speeds (anywhere from 50 mph to 125 mph) to achieve the maximum level of torque as the club head approaches the ball. This is done by adjusting the flex of an amateur's shaft (usually under 90 mph) to a "regular" or "senior" flex, which bends more; and by giving mid-amateur's (competitive) and professionals (usually tops out at 128, which is Tiger's club head speed) "stiff" or "extra stiff" flexes so that the torque might also be maximized. It gets progressively more complicated as you begin to look into tip, mid, and top flexes which control trajectory (throwback), but I'll leave the advanced stuff for our next Golf & Physics lesson.

[taylorgangorphysics-blog]

While this is not a picture of the kind of mechanic efficiency in the sense that we discussed today in class, it is a bit of comic relief. The actual measure of mechanical efficiency comes from dividing the actual mechanical advantage by the ideal one, which are calculated by dividing the "out force" by the "in" one, and the "in distance" by the "out" one, respectively. 

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This photo shows how a yo-yo works. It is interesting how things we learn in Physics apply to the most obscure of actions. Without knowledge of kinetic energy, one would never know what propels a yo-yo.

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Although I still am, and presumably will always be deficient at operating yo-yo's, I do find it somewhat interesting that they are essentially a physics experiment that we give to children when we can't find a better gift. But what does this mean for the yo-yo ball (a.k.a. my answer to mechanical inferiority)?

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This picture is a representation of the way pulleys reduce the amount of force exerted in a system. Each time a wheel is crossed over, due to increased distance, the force must be reduced; and this image depicts the mathematical relationship between the values of the weight each time a different pulley is added.

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Gallows

Today in class we learned about the viability of pulleys in their reduction of work output. And while I had significant difficulties in preparing my set of gallows for experimentation, I was eventually able to once again conclude that the world makes sense. This overtly broad inference was drawn from my realization that utilizing more pulleys leads to an increase in distance which leads to less required force. It's almost as if this stuff is magic.

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Today in class we learned about Potential Energy, as opposed to Kinetic; there was a bit of confusion about the classifications of various expenditures of energy in the world around us. I thought that this diagram would help clarify a bit, especially if one understands why each form of energy is in the category that it is. For instance, all of the energy in the objects on the left are stationary (a tennis racket's energy is in the tension of the strings); whereas the energy in the objects on the right are transitive (wind's energy is a moving force which is very apparent to anyone who has had the misfortune of trying to hit a wedge shot uphill into a 25 mph gust).

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Muscles contain potential energy-stored up in chemical bonds. When those bonds are broken down, that energy is converted into kinetic energy etc. Muscles also relate to what we have been talking about in class in another way. High-mass muscles, such as those on Schwarzenegger, have a tremendous amount of strength, and thus can do large amount of work. This does not mean they have a lot of power though, or “explosiveness” in athletic terms. This is why athletes, as opposed to bodybuilders, do plyometric exercises - exercises which decrease the time their muscles need to do the same amount of work. This allows players to jump high, sprint, make a tackle, etc. 

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I was just about to flip out because I thought that this was spam or a protein supplement advertisement of some kind but then I realized that using Arnold's younger visage can have productive results, because as we all know, there is nothing more productive and valuable than physics. 

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I know this is a bit of a throwback to uniform circular motion, but this posed a question to me (not involving James Bond): does UCM involve work? I became curious when I thought that there was force, and distance in a rotating system; however, I also began to think that perhaps there was a difference because the distance could be canceled out because the object in question returned to its original position.

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Today, December 7th, we had a Physics test. The test covered multiple topics, namely momentum and work. I felt confident in my knowledge of the material until I reached one question. The second short answer question on the final page of the test posed a question regarding force. The question...

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It could also be 50 N East, or simply "in the opposite direction". This is a good example of the simplicity of physics when you break it down; while the mathematics are imposing, at its root physical science is nothing more than understanding the relationships that exist around us.

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I find it funny that certain things in Physics that we've come to learn as fact are contrary to what we originally thought. This really began with Centripetal motion, which was a counter-intuitive concept to all of us; and this is the same thing as work, which we originally perceived as being the same thing as force, but is in fact the combination of a force, and the resulting motion. 

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While this video is terribly boring, it gives a real life example of what we learned in class today. While we were calculating the value of our awesome and limitless strength, we were doing things that scientists actually do for many of the things we use on a regular basis- most notably transportation. This also puts into perspective the gravity (lol physics pun) of how awesome the engines in our cars are, some of which reach 400 horsepower on a regular basis; as well as how insane it is that Usain Bolt is legally classified a human being.