Newton's 3rd Law

This past week, Mr. Kohara taught us something that blew our minds. We just could not believe the words he was saying to us. He said that every time you exert a force on an object, that object will return an equal and opposite force back. This is the act of Newton's 3rd Law. At first I was "tripping out" at what Mr. Kohara was saying but then began to realize the validity of this law. This past weekend, we had a baseball tournament. I did not realize until now that through baseball, we are performing Newton's 3rd Law of Motion. That also made me realize that its not only baseball, but many other things in our daily lives that perform the 3rd Law. Back to baseball, as a pitcher, I pitch or throw the ball to the catcher where the hitter tries to hit it. When I was pitching, I randomly remembered what Mr. Kohara said during class and smiled. I realized that every time I threw that ball, the ball pushed an equal and opposite force back at me. How weird is that?! A small baseball pushed the same amount of force on me as I did to the ball! That is hard to believe. But, the reason why the ball travels in the direction I push the ball is because its mass is a lot smaller than my mass. The balls mass is so small that even if it exerts the same force as I do, the ball will accelerate in the direction I force it to go. Since my mass is larger by far, my hand will not accelerate backwards as my mass is too great for the ball's mass.

The Drive

Every morning, I drive to school. For most students, their drive is not long. But since I live on the other side of the island from school, my drive averages an hour to an hour and a half each time! Pretty soon, "no can handle". Nah... can handle. Anyways, as we are always surprised at how much physics is related to our daily lives, I realized that each time I drive to school and back, I am causing my truck to accelerate. Acceleration is the difference of speed. Every time I press the gas petal or brake petal or turn the wheel, my truck is accelerating! It starts off when I pull out of my drive way. Though the acceleration of pulling out of my drive way is not as great as when I accelerate on to the freeway. Coming out of Wahiawa, I have to accelerate quickly from about 25 mph to roughly 60-65 mph which is the flow of traffic. The reason why I have to accelerate quickly is because the on ramp merges to the left and the cars behind me are also accelerating quickly. So I do not want to be the one holding traffic up by accelerating slowly. Then, as I am driving, I hit traffic. That is when i have to hit the breaks and slow down. Although I am slowing down, I am still accelerating. Because traffic is stop and go, I have to accelerate faster and slower repetitively. Then when I reach school, I decelerate to a stop where I reach school.

The Reflection Wall

I was laying down on my bed with my laptop on my lap, thinking of what I should write about for my physics journal. As I think, I look up at my wall and see the main light in my room on my wall. I was like how is that possible! Then I started to think about physics and remembered we learned something about diffuse reflection. I remembered that we did a lab on reflection and my wall reminded me of it. The main light source in my room reflects off my wall in all different directions, making it so that you can see the light from any angle. Because of this, my wall is performing diffuse reflection. I was so glad I looked up at my wall because now I have a journal topic!

light

As I was laying down in my room thinking of what to write about for my journal, I see these bright colors stand out in my closet. It ended up bein my rastah colored suspenders. Being that the colors are red, yellow, and green, and that we just learned in physics about color, I figured that this would be perfect to talk about. As I examined my suspenders, I concluded that the suspenders reflected red light, yellow light, and green light from the light source. As we learned in physics, white light is a combination of red light, green light, and blue light. So with that being said, we can conclude that as the white light hits the suspenders, the suspenders reflect the red light and absorb the green and blue lights in order for us to see the red part of the suspenders. In order for us to see the yellow, the suspenders absorbs the blue light and reflects the green and red lights, which is then mixed to produce the yellow light we see. As for the green part of the suspenders, the suspenders absorb the red and blue lights, reflecting the green light. That is how we are able to see the rastah colors. Now, we can take this concept and apply it to all objects reflecting the white light and see how the different objects appear a certain color. Isn't that amazing.

TRANSFORMERS

This is a picture of a transformer right outside of my house! I went outside of my house this morning and saw this transformer. I immediately took a picture because I knew this would be great to use for my journal. My whoe life I never realized there was a transformer right outside of my house. Thanks to Mr. Kohara and physics, I not only know that there is a transformer outside my house but how the transformer works. Electricity basically needs to be transfered from the power source to places like my home. The energy that the source sends out is much greater than what our houses need. That is where the transformers come in. It basically transfers the energy from a high voltage and steps down the voltage to the standard voltage of 120V, which our houses require. If it was not for the transformers, all our houses would be on fire because then the energy sent from the source would go straight to the houses and exceed the voltage in which the houses can handle. Thanks to the transformer, my house can safely use the energy without having to worry about creating fires from too high to handle voltages.

My impressions on this course  up to this point is pretty good.  I am not a big science fan, so coming in to this course, I assumed the worst.  But, after a quarter, this course is turning out to be a fun one.  I am going to admit that I have a hard time understanding science.  But one thing that this course has done was made science fun and interesting.  Therefore, it is now at least a little easier for me to learn and understand science.  Basically what I am trying to say is that this is probably the best science course I have ever taken.  I think the reason why this course is so interesting is the fact that we can relate what we are learning to our daily lives. 

My goal here are to gain knowledge that would help me with whatever physics-related encounters jump at me in my life.  I am hoping to apply what I learn here in this course to my life.

As of right now, I feel like I am falling behind.  After the trip, I missed a lot of work.  I am trying to catch up as well as do the work that is for that day.  As soon as i get settled with everything, I feel that I will be on the right track.  Though before the trip, I feel that I have been doing well and trying my best in the class.  I will continue to stay positive and work hard.  

electric current

For the past couple of weeks, we have been learning about electric currents. Thinking for a topic to write for this journal, I thought about a question that we had on a worksheet which asks if a thicker wire is better for charge to flow than a smaller wire. As I thought of things we use daily around the house that has to do with electric current, I thought of my washing machine and dryer. My family uses them everyday washing clothes and I thought to myself, "Ho.. the washing machine and dryer must require a lot of power and electricity in order for them to function." I was right. My dad and I pushed the washing machine and dryer out in order to see the back where all the wires are. What did we see? We saw very thick wires connecting the washing machine and dryer to the outlet. I was suprised at how big the wires were. Just as we learned, it is easier for the charge to travel through a thicker wire than a smaller thinner wire. That way, more charge can flow through, giving the machines the electricity they need to function. When you think about it, it is true that objects which requre a lot of electricity have thicker wires than objects that do not require as much electricity to function.