mean da screen =P

Hello again =] I am going to talk about physics in my life that I realize and I'm not even looking for. So just now I was looking through the pictures on my mom's camera to find the picture that I actually took for my journal. But as I was looking, I noticed this picture. I was going to use the other one but my mom lost the cord and this one was printed out so I just took a picture of the picture haha. Anyways this picture is of a ceiling in Las Vegas. I went up the week before spring break to play in a soccer tournament. But after the tournament we went to go walk the strip and there was this ceiling that lit up. It was like a show on a huge screen. It was so colorful and crazy and I was amazed at how they did this. I remember in physics class seeing a video clip of how the big screen tv in the Japan horse racing track was made and how it works. I'm going to guess this one in Las Vegas is very similar to that. I was amazed at all the many colors that there was on the screen. But all these colors are made of three primary colors of light. Red, Green, and Blue. In order to make all of the colors, the bulbs on the screen vary in brightness. For example if the red and green were bright and the blue was off, it would make the yellow color. From up close I would probably be able to see all the individual bulbs in a pattern of red, green and blue. But from far away it makes amazing pictures like the one above. Once again it is simple physics that makes such awesome things like a big screen on the ceiling.

movie time!!!

Before I start I would like to say sorry because during all of the events that I describe in my journal I did not have a camera ready with me to take pictures of good physics...So I choose to draw my pictures instead...but the thing is I don't have a camera so I used the one on my computer...but when I was making my picture I forgot that my computer camera takes pictures backwards...sorry about that I totally forgot until I took the picture...I hope you understand it anyways lol

So this weekend was sooooo much fun! It was family fair and pretty much like a four day weekend. Before I talk about the physics in the movies I watched, I am going to tell you about physics I noticed when we were at the Arizona Memorial. So when we took the boat out to the memorial I noticed the doppler effect. But it was kind of like a jet breaking the sound barrier because the boat was going faster than the waves it created. Just like how the jet goes faster than the sound waves it creates. So As i looked at the front of the boat there was practically no waves at the tip but a bunch were very close to the front. And the waves in the back was very spaced out. The doppler effect is when the source of the waves or the listener moves in a way that the frequency of the waves in the front of the object or when the source is moving toward the listener is higher than in the back or when the source is moving away. I also heard the doppler effect in the movie Transformers near the end when all the super cool fighter planes were battling the bad transformers. There was a really good one when the plane was by the bridge. It made a high pitched sound and then a low pitched one. But that's not the only physics thing I saw in that movie. When Shia LaBeouf, "Sam" in the movie, was choosing his car and the sales guy wouldn't give it to him, Bumblebee shattered all the car's windows. In the movie Bumblebee made a sound and all the windows shattered. This is an example of resonance. Bumblebee knew exactly what the natural frequency of the car's windows were. So he played a note at that same frequency and because the windows wanted to vibrate at that frequency, it vibrated so much that the glass actually shattered. When I saw that part in the movie I honestly thought physics and I felt like such a dork =P But it's okay because on saturday when we were watching Kungfuu Panda at the fair, Matt Talevera shouted out transverse waves in the begining part when there was a lake or a pond or something like that. And that was in front of a whole lot of people (he's a bigger dork..haha jk matt) Anyways transverse waves are waves that travel perpendicular to the direction the wave is going. So there were crests and troughs in the water as the waves traveled....I actually saw transformers last weekend but I really wanted to put it in the journal this weekend. Okay that is the end of my journal bye now =]

the beauty of a radio

So on Friday before I went to sleep, I turned on the radio like I always do. Right before this I was attempting to be a good student and "study" for the ACT. But studying actually meant a very fast skim of the practice book that I got from the CCO. Anyways the last section was the science section. There was some chemistry and some biology but there was also physics. In the practice book, there was problems on circuits and stuff we just learned. So I closed my book and turned off the light and went to my bed. I was still thinking about physics in general because that was the last thing I was thinking of. So I go to turn on my radio and I realize that it has more than one physics topic in the way it works. Magnets and sound waves! (btw this isn't a picture of it when I realized there was physics in it...I just went to sleep that night =P) Anyways, I turn my radio on and "gimme love" is playing I think on 100.3 So I turn the volume up because I like that song a lot. By adjusting the volume, I change the amplitude of the wave because the louder I make it, the bigger the amplitude. But the frequency, and period of the wave stays the same. But the next song that came on I didn't really like so I remember changing it to 98.5 but that was on commercial so I put the station on 102.7. By changing stations, my radio was catching different waves with different frequencies. This is why the music changed. The second part I realized was the speakers. They work by using a permanent magnet and electro magnet. The flow of electricity is switched depending on the music and so therefore the poles of the electromagnet is switched. When this happens, the permanent magnet and electromagnet either attract or repel depending on the poles. This vibration causes the speakers to create sound waves with a certain frequency. So with high notes it just vibrates faster or the poles switch faster. I think it is so awesome that something that I use everyday can be so related to physics!

Magnets =]

While I was doing my homework, I got thirsty and decided to go get a drink from the refrigerator. When I went to the frig, I looked at all the magnets that we have and all the pictures that the magnets hold up. There are magnets from all over because our family likes to collect magnets. I realized that this is related to physics. A refrigerator is made from iron, which means it is ferromagnetic. Because iron and nickle and cobalt all have an unpaired electron, that electron's spin isn't offset by another electron going in the opposite direction. This causes magnetism. The magnet is already magnetic meaning that all its unpaired electrons are spinning the same way. This creates magnetic north and south poles. The refrigerator has all its unpaired electrons spinning in all different ways. This is why it isn't magnetic. But, when a magnet is put on the refrigerator, it stays because the magnet changes the spin of the electrons on that part of the refrigerator, which creates north and south poles. If I tried to stick some other ferromagnetic object that wasn't magnetized, it wouldn't stick because just like the refrigerator, its electrons would be spinning in random directions and the domains would be pointing in different directions. So it wouldn't have poles to reorient the domains in the refrigerator. Something so simple that I always overlook has such interesting physics ideas in it.

A Bright Idea

This weekend we had a party at my house and we were cleaning the house and getting ready. One of the light bulbs needed to be replaced so we went to the store and got 60 watt light bulbs. After we replaced the light bulb, we turned it on and it seemed like in an instant it was bright. What is actually happening is that there are electrons all along the circuit and in the light bulb. When I flipped the switch on, it made a complete circuit. This connects the two voltage differences, which is what forces the electrons through the circuit. At the instant there was an electric field, the electrons started moving through the light bulb and through the filament. The filament is what makes the light bulb light. The filament is made out of tungsten, which is the metal with the highest boiling point. A long piece of filament is coiled into a small area. As the electrons move through the filament, they bump into the atoms, which is resistance. This colliding between electrons and atoms cause heat energy. The heat energy is turned into light energy and a light bulb lights. This seemingly easy invention was actually a really bright idea.

outlets

Today after I went to karaoke with my family, I went to the bathroom to go take a shower. I pushed the power button but the radio didn't turn on. Then I realized that it wasn't plugged in and I felt like an idiot. So I plugged it in and realized that there was physics in the outlet. The average house outlet has 120 volts. Actually the difference in voltage between the two points of an outlet is 120 V. The outlet has three holes. Two of them make a complete circuit, which is why there is power when I plugged the radio in. The third hole is to keeps it grounded so that it doesn't short circuit. But it made me think of those caution signs. Like the ones on power plants and stuff that say danger high voltage. When I was little I used to think that it was super dangerous and that if i just touched it I would get shocked. But volts is actually a ratio of potential energy and charge. The more potential energy per coulomb, the more dangerous it is. But now I know better =] I never realized there could be so much physics in such an everyday household item like an outlet.

the cup

This weekend was my grandpa's 83 birthday. It was actually on friday but we celebrated it on sunday. I went to my cousin JR's house and we had a small party with the family. We ate lots of food, sang happy birthday and ate the cake and ice cream. When I was eating, I was drinking water in a green cup. Some of my cousins and uncles and aunties were watching this show man vs. food. Some of the stuff he ate was so big and greasy looking. After they showed one of the foods, my family reacted to it and all said "eew". I wanted to see what they were so grossed out about. So, without thinking, I put my cup down on the table and hurried to the tv room. But as I started running, I heard my cup fall on the floor. The reason why it fell can easily be explained by physics. In the first picture, the center of mass is supported by the table. But my cup's center of mass wasn't causing it to fall on the floor. The weight of the cup creates a downward force. When it is supported, then there is no lever arm so it can't exert a torque and fall over. But when the cm isn't supported, the lever arm is from the edge of the table to the cm and there is a torque which causes the cup to rotate over. Next time, I need to pay attention and make sure the cm of my cup is fully supported by the table :)

Christmas time =]

During winter break, we got a tree and decorated it with ornaments and lights. While I was putting the ornaments on, I accidentally hit the tree and one of the ornaments fell. These ornaments were my grandma's and they are really old and fragile. Luckily our tree is on a carpeted area so when the ornament fell, it didn't break. But if the ornament had fell on the hard floor, it would have shattered into pieces. I realized that this was totally related to physics. When a net force is applied to an object to change its velocity and momentum, then it is an impulse (J). In physics, there is a formula for impulse J = F x t (impulse= force x time). Impulse also equals change of momentum. The change of momentum of the ornament would be the same on the hard floor and the carpet because the mass is the same and the change in velocity would be the same. The reason why the ornament didn't break was because the time of impact was extended therefore decreasing the force. The carpet was a cushion that increased the time it took for the ornament's velocity to reach zero. Thanks to physics, my grandma's ornament didn't break.