Blog 7: Circular Motion

As I was driving home the other evening, I fealt defeated, knowing I still had not finished my physics blog.  Luckily, I happened to glance out the window as we passed by the beach and I noticed the setting sun..  After I noted how pretty it looked, I was hit with a sudden burst of inspiration.  The Earth and the Sun are involved in circular motion.  The Earth revolves around the sun with a period of one year.  The centripetal force acting on the Earth is gravity, which pulls it toward the Sun, the center of rotation in this case.  As soon as I got home, I ran to my computer so that I could write this blog. 
 

Blog 6: Impulse and Momentum

Baseball is a game that involves a ton of physics.  The science behind hitting, throwing, catching, and running, the basics of baseball, can all be explained via physics.  Hitting, especially, involves topics such as impulse and momentum.  Impulse is the force two objects exert on one another when they collide.  When a baseball hits a bat, for instance, there is impulse.  Impulse is equal to the change in momentum or the amount of force times the amount of time the two objects are in contact.  Let's say the ball and bat collide with a force of ten newtons and they are in contact for 1 second (a very long time), the resulting impulse would be ten Ns.  Impulse is very important in regards to hitting. 

Blog 5: Work

The other day, as I was working out at home, I remembered that i needed to write a blog for physics.  I was doing an exercise in which I have one foot on a box about 4 ft. high, and i jump, pushing off the box with my foot.  As I am in mid air, I switch feet, landing on the box with my opposite foot.  I realized that throughout the drill, my net work is zero because I have no change in Kinetic Energy.  My initial velocity was zero and my final velocity, my velocity at the peak of my jump, was also zero.  This makes sense, because, as I was doing work up, gravity was doing the same amount of work down, resulting in a zero net force.  Thinking of this, helped me to take my mind off the strenuous task that I was doing.   

Blog 4: Friction

Friction is defined as a force that opposes the motion or attempted motion of an object in contact with another object moving past it.  Static friction is the amount of friction occuring between two objects that are not in motion.  The maximum static friction equals the amount of force required to break the static friction and send the obhject into motion.  The other night, I attempted to find the maximum static friction of my car, a Toyota 4 Runner.  I reversed the car into the driveway amd attempted to push it back into the garage.  To my amazement, I was unable to do so despite my best effort.  Frustrated, I punched the side of the car and left a massive dent in it.  Hopefully, my dad doesn't realize it was me.  I learned from this that the maximum static friction of my car is pretty large, seeing how I couldn't get it moving. 

Blog 3

When I arrived home on Sunday, I immediately went to the tv and turned to Sports Center, expecting to see that Colts had blown out the Jacksonville Jaguars.  What I saw instead was mind boggling.  The Jaguars had won on a last second, 59 yard field goal by Josh Scobee.  I sat there, stunned, as I saw the replay of his extremely lucky kick.  That's when it hit me.  This loss is not all bad, I thought to myself.  The Colts may have lost, but physics won the game.  Josh Scobee was probably thinking of Newton's laws as he was kicking.  An object at rest stays at rest unless acted on by an outside force.  The football was at rest and the force was him kicking it.  Net force equals mass times acceleration.  Prior to his kick, he first calculated, in his head, the acceleration necessary which he inserted to find the force with which he needed to kick the ball.  Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.  He kicked the ball and the ball kicked him back with an equal force.  The ball however, had a smaller mass which resulted in a greater acceleration.  I applaud Josh Scobee for using physics in order to kick that game winning field goal.      

Physics in Football

This weekend, I watched the Sunday night prime time football game between the Indianapolis Colts and the New York Giants.  The Colts dominated the game and won by a score of 38-14.  Since the game was such a blowout, I was able to focus my attention on the physics of the game of football.  Peyton Manning, the best quarterback in the National Football League, faced off against his brother Eli Manning, the quarterback of the Giants.  Everytime Peyton passes the ball, physics is involved in the process.  When he is waiting under center, he has an initial velocity of zero.  As he is dropping back and reading the defense, he is accelerating away from the origin, the line of scrimmage.  If Peyton feels the defense appyling pressure, which isn't often, he changes his acceleration and velocity in order to avoid the sack.  Peyton Manning is an excellent quarterback, one of the best at his positions, who is able to apply physics in order to do his job as a passer.  Go Colts!

Physics in Baseball

This past weekend I was throwing with my dad when I realized, "Hey throwing a baseball is realted to what we have been studying in Physics.  As I began to ponder this thought, I realized tha baseball, in itself, is a game of Physics.  Everything you do, whether it be hitting, fielding, running, or throwing, involves some concpet relating to physics.  When you throw a ball, it is accelerating as it travels from point a to point b; my hand to my partners glove.  An average major league pitcher throws the ball at a velocity of 90 mph.  Some pitchers can throw in the upper 90s to lower 100s!  At this speed, a hitter has less than half a second to react to the pitch once it is released from the pitcher's hand.  Baseball is a fun sport that deeply involves concepts of physics.