SHOCK!

Every Sunday, I have pitching practice at my coaches house. At his house, my coach has a cage where I can pitch to a net and practice and improve my pitching. The ground in the cage is all turf. Having turf is way better than having grass because unlike grass, you don't have to water the turf. Each pitching session, I pitch about 100 balls. Each time I pitch the ball, my feet rubs against the turf, causing friction. Each time my feet rubs against the turf, my body becomes that much more negatively charged. After a hard session of pitching, my body is full of negative electrons due to the friction between my feet and the turf. As I exit the cage, I open the gate. As soon as I touch that gate, I get shocked. This happens each time. Then, as I got shocked again today, I began to think about physics and how we learned about what happens when you get shocked. Because the gate is metal, it is a good conductor. Therefore, "electons will spread to all parts of its surface because the transferred electrons repel one another" (Pg. 419 of txt book). So, all of the negatively charged electrons from my body will transfer to the gate, which is the neutral object. This is called "charging by contact." Now I know why I get shocked each time I leave my pitching practice.

Sound Waves: Sub Woofers

Everyday when I drive, I listen to music. I did not realize that what was happening when I was playing the music, sound waves were being produced. I thought of this because of what we are learning in class. The sub woofers in my truck are good examples of sound waves. They make a lot of vibrations to creat the loud booming sound. If we were to take the sound of the subs and use that sound in our first lab, the waves would have long wave lengths and huge amplitudes. Subs are longitudinal waves because the sound generated from the subs are pushed outwards. It is not like a flag where the motion has to go up and down to create the wave.