Projectiles

A projectile is anything that is dropped, shot, or struck, or thrown and then travels through the air underthe influence of only gravity. A projectiles velocity can be seperated into vertical and horizontal parts where the horizontal velocity always remains constant. The vertical velocity equation is D=(.5)(9.8m/ss)(t x t) and the horizontal velocity equation is D=vt. A projectile has a set path and its motion is a parabola. As you can see in the picture, I am a projectile with a set path because I have jumped in the air and is moving through the air!

The CG

I had a great weekend. It was full of fun and excitement! There was also lots of physics involved. As i was watching my sister find me a song on her computer, i held a bat in my hands, kind of just fooling around with it. Then at one point, i noticed it balancing on my two fingers and i was like, what the heck? How can this be? I wasn't even holding the bat at the middle of the bat. Instead, i was balancing the bat towards the heavier part. I was amazed. But in AP Concept Physics i learned about objects center of gravity and how it works. The CG is the average position of the weight distribution of an object. The CG of an object can move constantly to different locations, it all depends on the mass distribution. The bat balances on my two fingers because the bats CG is within the support area. As long as the CG stays within the area of support it will not fall over. The CG is unable to act as a torque and make the bat rotate.

Tilted Road=Centripetal Force

Spring Break

Its always a shame when spring break comes to a close but on the positive side, its the last quarter and one quarter closer to graduating. Anyways, during my spring break, baseball kept me busy. The team is doing a great job as we are 6-0 hopefully to make it 7-0 this tuesday against punahou. Its been such a great season so far and the team and I would really like to keep it that way. Maybe an undefeated season!!! In baseball theres a ton of physics which i will not get into though. Generally though, theres physics when a pitcher throws the ball and the cather catches it stopping its velocity in an instant. Or when the bat hits the ball and the ball goes flying through the air. Its every where in baseball thats why its America's greates past time of all time!!!

I hate to WORK

This has been a not bad weekend, especially since theres only one more week of school before spring break! Physics is everywhere and i'm always doing something that refers to the concepts of physics. Work has a very specific meaning and it isn't quite the same as what you all may think. You are not doing work if you are just holding something off the ground, perhaps weights, even if you can feel the burn in your muscles. But you are doing work while you are actually lifting the weight up and down because you're changing the energy by moving. Work reguires two things...force and motion in direction of force (distance). The equation for work is W=F x d. Positive work adds energy to a system and negative work removes energy from the system. Total work done to a system equals the change in energy for the system. Any object you pick up, you are doing work to it. Even if its just lifting a pencil, you're still doing work to it even if you can't actually feel it. In this picture, i am lifting a table but i'm just holding it which means i'm not doing work. But during the time i bent down to pick it up and lift it, i was doing work.

Newton's 3rd Law

Physics has gone by really fast and I've learned a lot. I have been able to put my knowledge into everyday use and its been really helpful. After learning Newtons 3 laws, I've noticed that his 3rd law is the most interesting. For every action, theres an equal and opposite reaction. So basically, if A pushes B one way, then B pushes A the other way with the same amount of force. So in this picture, I'm jumping in the air like MJ dunking the ball. The only I got in the air in the first place was because i pushed off the ground. But then again, was it the ground that pushed me? Its both actually, but because I have a lot less mass than the earth/ground, I'm the one that moves and fly's for a short while through the air.

Newton's 3rd Law-Baseball

Concept Physics has been the best class i've ever had iolani. I really enjoy the class and i really learn a lot. So far, I've learned about Newtons first two laws of motion and they are very fascinating. However, the 3rd law is even more crazy. Whenever one object exerts a force on a second object, the second object exerts an equal and opposite force on the first. This law is so trippy it can blow your mind. Sports has a lot of physics and baseball is one of them which probably deals with all three laws of motion. Here in this picture is me hitting a ball. The picture was taken my sophmore year on the varsity level. As you can see, the ball was thrown by the pitcher which exerted a force on the ball which has a very low mass compared to the pitcher. Once released, the ball moves at a constant motion until a force acts upon it. The only force in a perfect world acting on the ball is gravity. But in the real world, theres gravity and air resistance. Now when i swing the bat and hit the ball, the ball goes flying in the air. This happens because the bat exerted a tremendous amount of force. However, if the bat hits the ball one way, then the ball hits the bat in the opposite direction with the same amount of force. But because the ball has a low mass compared to me and bat it acceleration is very big. And thats some physics with baseball!!!