Blog 13: Colors!

Prom is something everyone looks forward.  It is supposed to be a night of fun, dancing, good fun, and socialization.  What it is not supposed to be, is a night of physics.  Yet, i couldn't help thinking about what we learned in class as I saw all the girls wearing their fancy, colorful dresses.  I took notice of a girl wearing a red, green, and blue dress and thought to myself, "boom, she's wearing all the primary colors."  I saw another girl wearing a yellow dress, and as much as i despised it, i did note that it was a secondary color, made up of red and green.  In this case, my knowledge of physics did not pay off, as it was all I could think of the entire prom.  My "Night of Mystery" quickly turned into a "A Night of Misery."   

Blog 12: Waves

The other day, i got a few of my buddies and we went to see a football game, if I remember correctly.  At the game, the crowd seemed a little quiet so we stood up and attracted everyones attention.  We used hand signals to show everyone that we intended to start a "wave."  It took a few tries, but eventually people began to catch on.  The result was glorious.  A giant wave seemed to be sweeping through the stands, section by section.  This seemed to spark excitment in the crowd, as seen in the image below.  As I stood there, marveling at my spectacular achievement, I remembered something we had recently learned in physics class.  This was a transverse wave because the up and down motion of the people was perpendicular to the direction the wave was traveling. 

Blog 10: Circuits

Usually, when I go to bed, I am soothed asleep by the melodic humming of my air conditioner.  The other night however, right as I was falling asleep, I was startled awake when my air conditioner, along with the other electrical appliances in my room, such as my night light, mysteriously shut off.  I curled into the fetal position under my sheets, deathly afraid of the silence and darkness that penetrated my room.  The situation seemed all too much like a scary horror movie.  That was when physics saved the day, or night rather.  I recalled what we had learned in class about short circuits.  When a circuit has no resistance, too much current flows through, causing the circuit to become extremely hot.  This could be extremely detrimental to a house, and could easily result in a fire.  In order to prevent this, circuit breakers are installed in houses with the purpose of "breaking" a circuit when too much current is flowing through it.  I decided to investigate for myself, and sure enough, the circuit breaker switch for my room had flipped. I flipped it back to its original position, and when I returned to my room, all my appliances were back on.  Also, the lights in the other rooms of my house still functioned, suggesting that my house is wired in parallel rather than in series. 

  

Blog 9: Static Balloon

As I was cleaning my house this past weekend, I happened to stumble upon a bag of balloons.  Excitedly, I tore open the bag and chose a red one.  I blew it up to a nice, plump size and proceeded to play with it.  I ran around the house like a child and tossed the balloon around, seeing how long I could keep it from touching the ground.  Eventually, it hit the ground and I became enraged.  I turned into a beast and looked around for someone to release my rage on.  My sister was standing close by, chuckling to herself, so I ran up to her and vehemently rubbed the balloon in her hair.  She began to flail like a magikarp, and in the process, knocked the balloon out of my hands.  It flew in the air, and like magic, it stuck to the wall nearby.  I was flabbergasted!  That's when I remembered the physics lab we had done.  By rubbing the balloon in my sister's hair, I charged the balloon.  When it came into contact with the wall, the positive charges in the wall were attracted to the negatively charged balloon, causing it to stick.  Yay physics!      

Blog 8: Balancing Can

After coming home from a grueling day of baseball, under the scorcheringly hot sun, I decided to refresh myself with an ice cold beverage.  I really wanted a gatorade, but as I was digging through my fridge, I learned that all I had were canned juices.  My heart dropped as I realized that I would have to settle for a measly can of unrefreshing liquid.  I let out a sigh as I popped open the tab, and I drank about 5/8 of the can in one gulp.  Instantly, I was hit with the sudden urge to urinate, so I dropped the can on the counter and ran to the bathroom.  When I returned from my extremelly satisfying trip to the toilet bowl, I was surprised to see the that the can was tilted and balancing on one of its corners.  Being the naturally inquistive person that I am, I began to think about why this was possible.  That's when I remembered what we had just learned in physics: In order for an object to balance, its center of mass needs to be directly over its support base.  I had drank the perfect amount of juice so that this would be possible.  If I did not drink enough, the can would have tipped over, leaving a very big mess for me to clean up.  If I drank too much, the can would have been pulled back to it's original position, perpendicular to the counter.