1st semester reflection

Within the past 3 weeks or so, I feel like I have done more school work than I do during the regular school year (aha), but I have learned quite a lot! The thing that I really like about physics is the fact that it is all applied math, and it's all pretty useful information. For example, we learned a lot about the differences between the distance vs. time and velocity vs. time graphs, which pretty much apply to anything you could think of in life (something that has motion). We also learned about ideas such as free falling objects and how the velocity changes while it travels in the air (fast, slow, stop, slow, fast) due to the gravitational force of 9.81 m/s. I also really got to learn the metric system. I remember learning it in chemistry, but I had a hard time concentrating so I never really learned it even though it was all very simple. I enjoy the fact that I can look around every day of my life and understand the world a little better. I tend to think in a "physics" mind set right after I get out of class, it's a good feeling to understand things.
 The fact that each day is equivalent to about one week definitely motivates me to do well in class and pay attention and ask lots of questions. Honestly, if I took this class over the regular school I would have done very poorly and would have came out of the class with little knowledge.  THe biggest challenge for me in this class is all of the math. Although I am not terrible at math, I am definitely not good at it, and things can get confusing sometimes.

Unit 6

So here's green dude chillin in an elevator, going up to the 45th floor to see his purple lady friend. So he's now wizzing past in the elevator and at this very moment just passed the 10th floor. Because its pretty early in the morning there, there isn't much elevator traffic, so the elevator goes straight from floor 1 to floor 45. So while green dude is in the elevator passing the 10th floor, the elevator is moving at a constant velocity which means the two forces drawn below are balanced. This is why green dude doesn't even feel like he is moving (up or down).

So actually, before he even started his journey up the elevator shaft, green dude had to walk into the elevator when it was completely still. This means, the elevator had to accelerate in the very beginning in order to get to the constant speed above. So in the very beginning, the elevator accelerated and this caused the forces of N (normal force) and mg (mass*gravity, or weight) to become unbalanced. This means that green dude would have felt heavier, as the elevator accelerated upwards, even though his mass did not change. 

Green dude visits the lady friend, and eventually has to ride the elevator back down. So this means the elevator and himself, are both accelerating downwards. The acceleration once again causes an imbalance in the forces, causing the green dude to feel a lot lighter!

Unit 5 summary

 

The diagram above shows the puppies in a box at rest. There is no acceleration so the forces balance each other out.

 

In the diagram above, lets say the box is frictionless, so the puppies are moving at a constant velocity. Once again the forces are balancing each other out since there is no acceleration. 

Now in this drawing, the puppies are moving down a hill, which means they are experiencing friction. Because of this friction, they accelerate as they move down the hill, which means the forces are unbalanced.

Unit 5

Newtons law!!!!!
#1 !!!!!!

so exciting !!!!

SO the first law, is the law of inertia: objects in motion will tend to stay in motion unless acted upon
by an outside unbalanced force.
So this would technically mean that if a donut were to be pushed at about 5 m/s down a path, it would keep rolling foreverr. But because we live on this planet earth, this would not be possible (law of inertia comes to play!), because there are many many outside unbalanced forces, such as gravity. Now if this were a perfect world with no such thing as gravity, or friction, or air resistance, etc. the donut could in fact roll forever at this constant rate !

Unit 4 continued

The car above is going at about 30 m/s. The driver is daydreaming, and forgets about the super dangerous steep cliff and so she goes plummeting down. The cliff is about 500 m tall from the water level, so the question is where would this reckless driver end up in the ocean?

so here is the procedure below

luckily she had a magic umbrella to save the day.

Unit 4- Projectile Motion

 Garrett is skateboarding across at a slow and constant rate of 3m/s. With allergy season and all, he's kind of congested and needs to get rid of his mucus, and for some reason decides to spit straight up into the air. So where will this wad of saliva end up?

Little did Garrett know that it would end up right back in his face again ! aha . gross. Because Garrett is traveling at a constant 3m/s his mucus ball is also traveling at 3 m/s when he spits it out. This means it follows garrett until it falls from gravity. Now how could Garrett avoid his own spit ball in this situation? Well he could have spit to the side, yes. But he also could have accelerated in this time span in order to travel at a different rate than the spit ball. 

Concluding Quarter 1

In the first quarter we learned about the study of motion (Kinematics), and part of it focused on the differences between Velocity and Speed . So let me tell you a story about Riley Rainbow. He loves dance parties (strictly for dancing) and attends every single one. So he starts at point A and wants to end up at point B. He is moving at a constant rate of let's say, 5 m/s, because that is all his rocket shoes will allow. So this means his velocity is also 5 m/s.

Now let's say that Riley Rainbow did all he could to enjoy himself at this dance party, but he just wasn't feeling it. So he gets to point B, and stays there for a little while, but decides to leave after some time. So he jets his way back to point A at a constant rate of 5 m/s but at this point his velocity is 0.

So although velocity and speed can be easily confused, just remember velocity is the change in distance/time, while speed is the total distance/time. 

Unit 3- continued (pigs can't fly)

 So lets say I have this little tea cup piglet, and I decide to throw it up in the air for fun. The pig will accelerate from the moment it is in the air, then it will stop for an instant at the very height of its motion, and then it will accelerate until it reaches my hand again.
Although the pig begins by moving in an upward motion, the pig is actually accelerating down the entire time it is in the air.

Because if the pig did accelerate upwards, against gravity, it would not stop moving. It would crash through the ceiling and who knows where he'll end up.....

Unit 3-Acceleration

Note: For this example, I will be using the measurement of notes per second.

From the moment I begin to play this piece on the piano, my fingers (on my right hand) are moving at a constant rate of about 1 note per second (the first line) for about 16 seconds. As I move on, the speed suddenly changes as my fingers move at about a speed of 5 notes per second for about 24 seconds. This sudden change in speed is called acceleration.

Unit 2-Kinematics

Let's say that the long hand is at the top of the hour, just to make things a little easier for this purpose. So we will be tracking this long hand as time goes by. Let's pretend that each tick mark (from 1-12) is a distance of 5 m. The long hand starts at the top of the hour (at 11 o' clock) and eventually travels to the top of the hour once again (at 12 o' clock), traveling a total distance of 60m in 60 minutes (3600 sec).
To find out what the average speed of the long hand is, we would use the equation, speed=distance/time. So 60 m divided by 3600 seconds equals to about an average speed of .02 m/sec.
The long hand is traveling at a constant speed of about .02 m/sec, but what is the velocity of the long hand in this particular situation?
In order to figure this out, we will use the equation, velocity=displacement(or the distance traveled from the starting point)/time. So 0 m/3600sec is equal to a velocity of 0. In one 60 minute period, the long hand traveled a total of 60 m, but had no velocity simply because it ended up where it started within this period. But for example, if we were to track the long hand for 10 minutes, the average speed would be the same at .02 m/sec (because the long hand is traveling at a constant speed), and it would have traveled a total of 10m. Because it traveled from point A to point B in this case, the velocity would be 10m/600 sec, or .02 m/sec to the right.

Unit 2- Motion

All Motion is Relative

While looking through some old pictures of mine to relate to this topic, I found this image I took about a few years ago. From what I remember, these fellas were running away from me after they felt my presence (aha), and they all ran from different locations. 
Lets say I am the starting point, at point A. Sheep 1 is also at point A, at 0 meters, Sheep 2 is at point B, at 3 meters, and Sheep 3 is at point C, at 5 meters. Once they realized that I was there, their flight or fight response kicked in, (in which they chose flight), and they galloped away. 
Sheep 1 is the one closest to me and gets startled the most, so she sprints away and even accelerates to reach a safe 30 meters. Sheep 2 is able to keep a pretty steady pace, and eventually reaches a relatively safe 24 meters. Sheep 3 has the least to worry about, being 5 meters away to begin with, becomes careless, trips and stumbles leaving him at 20 meters in a period of 10 seconds. 

 So this graph shows everything I explained, and a little more. The one point, where all the lines intersect at 8 seconds and 20 meters represents the moment in which all three sheep were in the exact same location at the exact same time. Because motion is relative, if the sheep looked at each other at this exact time of the intersection, they would not appear to be moving to each other, even though it is evident that sheep one is moving the fastest.

Unit 1

-->

I took a photo of my germinating plants as a representation of a direct relationship, which is one of the five graphs we covered in this unit. Although I don't have exact measurements, I can assume that my plants are growing everyday (almost) proportionally. As time goes on, my plants will grow taller in height until they reach a maximum point, which would conclude its direct relationship between time and its height. If I were to make a graph, x would be time measured in days, and y would be the height of the plant measured in centimeters. There would be many variables that could affect this relationship, (ex: wind, rain, insufficient sunlight, bugs, animals, etc) but assuming that the plant is in a well-controlled environment, the image below is what the graph should look like:

Introduction

 

I am Melody.
I am curious.
I am an artist.

As an artist, a creator, I believe it is important to have a good overview of everything, a nice taste of all sorts that this place (the universe, the earth)  has to offer. Whether it is (applied) math, science, philosophy, history, etc, I always want to learn more about it !  Everything is connected and intertwined, and having a better understanding of the big picture just makes art making that much more meaningful.

So far I have taken Biology, Chemistry, Astronomy, and Anatomy (major systems) in my academy years. The last math class I took was Alg2/Trig BCP, and I will not continue math next year (!!!!!!!!!!!yes!). I really love learning about all the different sciences, but it can be a challenge because of the math concepts involved. I was 100% sure that I was not going to take Physics, as I don't need the credit, (and also heard that it involved lots of math) that is until I took Astronomy. We learned some basic physics concepts in Astronomy, such as the theory of relativity, and I was very intrigued! So I figured it would be a good idea to take it over the summer, that way I can focus on the concepts, and not have to worry too much about my grades and getting overwhelmed during the regular school year.

The image above is a self portrait I drew recently, and I felt it represents me very well. Close pals of mine always recognize me from afar because of my jacket and hat, aha.