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.