LSA E Mech 2017-18

A boomerang travels in more or less a circular path. The motion is a combination of various physical principles, for example, aerodynamic lift and circular motion. You have to get these physical principles just right when throwing a boomerang. Think of the two arms of a boomerang as being like the wings of an airplane. The faster they move through the air, the more lift they generate. A boomerang spins as it moves through the air and the combination of spin and forward speed means that some parts of the boomerang are moving faster than others. This means that the boomerang traveling sideways so the net lift is towards the center of the circle that you see the boomerang move on. Another important physical principle is the non-uniform lift. The non-uniform lift generates torque. This causes the gyroscopic effect to come into play. A spinning boomerang is really no different to a spinning gyroscope and the gyroscopic effect makes the boomerang turn around at just the right rate. An

British mathematician Samuel Earnshaw proved that there is no configurable way to levitate permanent magnets, and if one magnet were to be levitating over another, the smallest disturbance will cause it to fall.  Oriol Romero-Isart's research group from Innsbruck University and the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information at the Austrian Academy of Sciences have shown that the gyrating motion of a magnetic top causes a system correction when the magnets are disturbed.  Nano objects are in charge of this correction.  Albert Einstein and Wander Johannes de Haas found in 1915 that magnetism is a result of electron spin, which allows the levitation of a nano magnet in a stable electric field, which should be impossible according to Earnshaw's theorem.  The researchers' studies showed that equilibrium was achieved when dissipation did not occur, which relied on the gyromagnetic effect.  This effect stabilizes the magnetic levitation of the nano magnet. Levitated

This blog entry is a continuation of part 1 on the PAC- 3 missiles. In the first blog, the information of a Hwasong-12 missile launch was calculated from a real life launch. That information was used to create the trajectory of a hypothetical missile launch that would collide with the defensive Patriot missile. In this part 2, the trajectory of the Patriot missile will be calculated, therefore determining the point at which the two missiles will collide together in the air. In this hypothetical launch, the Patriot missile is being launched from Daegu, South Korea and the Hwasong-12 is being launched from Sudan, North Korea.  The PAC-3 missile system contains its own radar, transmitter and computer, allowing it to guide itself. Right before it is launched, the radar finds the target and aims for a direct hit. At this speed there is absolutely no room for error. If the missile miscalculates by even 1/100th of a second, it will be off by more than 30.5 meters.

Examining Physics in Everyday Life And Why You Should Care Solvay Conference 1927 Introduction : Over the past century, physicists from around the world have started coming together to figure out and make sense of the laws that govern the universe and how they apply to everyday life. The above image is a very famous picture showing the first example of this. (Note: Marie Curie, bottom row and third from the left, was the only woman at this conference.) What were they thinking at this conference? "Nature of determinism and what it means only to have a probability that a particle might be somewhere and whether any of it was real." -->  first beginning to think about physics Examining Cultural Perception of Physics:  There is a big gap between quantum mechanics and cosmology.  First... What is  quantum mechanics?   Check out this  1 minute  introduction below. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcfQkxwz4Oo What is  cosmology?   Check

 2017 Physics Nobel Prize - Capturing Gravitational Waves Gravitational Waves Captured by LIGO Who?  Rainer Weiss, Barry C. Barish, and Kip S. Thorne - LIGO/VIRGO Collarboration What?  Observation of gravitational waves for the first time using LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory. Where?  Two locations in the US - Hanford and Livingston. (See figure 1) Figure 1: LIGO in the US When?  14 September 2015 HOW?  The scientists captured gravitational waves by using an interferometer. The LIGO interferometer is a more glamorous interferometer than the original Michelson interferometer. It works through using light waves to measure gravitational interference (i.e. waves). First, one needs to understand the parts of an interferometer. The LIGO interferometer (and most) is shaped as an L. It has two 4 km vacuum tunnel arms with a mirror at each end. At the center of the arms, there is a beam splitter. There is also a laser parallel

There are many common misconceptions related to weightlessness on the International Space Station. Some of these misconceptions include that there is no gravity in space, that there is no gravity in a vacuum, and that the ISS is too far away from the Earth to experience gravity. All of these misconceptions can be proven false through an understanding in centripetal forces. Satellites––including the ISS, the moon, and communication satellites––experience massive orbital velocity. We can calculate the centripetal acceleration of the ISS. The ISS has an average altitude of 330 to 430 kilometers from the Earth's surface. This added to the 6,371 km radius of the Earth is an orbit where the radius is approximately 7000 km.  The average velocity of the ISS is 7660 meters per second. Using the formula Ac=v^2/r, we can calculate that 7660^2/7000 results in a centripetal acceleration of 8,382 m/s^2. We can also use the tangental velocity of the ISS to calculate how often the ISS compl

Roller coasters are one of the most popular amusement park rides in the world. Along with all the fun, roller coasters are also very scientific. Physics plays a great roll in every roller coaster ride. Thanks to physics, we know how roller coasters work and why. Science affects the way roller coasters work all because of the energy. The two types of energy are potential energy and kinetic energy. Potential energy is defined as the energy possessed by a body by virtue of its position relative to others, stresses within itself, electric charge, and other factors. In roller coasters, the potential energy, also called the energy of position, works because as the roller coaster gets higher and higher, gravity is able to pull the coaster down at a grater distance. This happens in many other situations, such as riding a bike or driving a car, but especially in roller coasters. The next type of energy is kinetic energy. Kinetic energy can be defined as the energy that a body possesses

The Gravitron: The Early Lesson in Centripetal Force Everyone has seen some form of the carnival ride pictured above, whether it be the state of the art indoor attraction that blew kids minds back in the 1980s, or the more ancient counterpart the Roundup. The poor man's Gravitron that does keep you stationary in a standing position without flying out, but also succeeds in making you sick because you see the world spinning around you at 100 million miles a minute, but I digress. The Gravitron is a ride that was invented in the early 1980s in which the rider goes inside a saucer-shaped capsule and stands with their backs to the wall. The ride begins to spin and due to the concept of centripetal force, the rider is pushed against the wall and is stuck there without the aid of a harness or seat belt. So why do people feel weightless while riding the Gravitron? Well, we know that zero gravity on Earth is impossible, but we can almost mimic zero gravity via apparent weight (m(a+g

A group of cyber security researchers from Belgium has recently discovered a dangerous new possible threat to smartphone and laptop users: KRACK. The acronym stands for Key Re-installment Attack and it is a form of cyber threat that targets anyone using a WiFi network. As of right now the technique remains a theory and no actual instances have been documented, but one can imagine the damaging widespread effects that an attack using WiFi could have. https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/keep-your-wi-fi-off-krack/ The way that the hypothetical attack would work is by targeting a weakness in the WPA2 security system of most WiFi routers. The weakness would allow a hacker within range of the network to create a false duplicate network seemingly identical to the original. The attacker would then likely be able to fool the network user into connecting to their impostor network, at which point they would be able to access information stored on the device being connected. Th

Have you ever wondered how a hot air balloon lifts in the air? Buoyancy, a basic principle, is used to generate lift for the hot air balloon. There are many parts to the hot air balloon in order for this to take place. different parts of a hot air balloon The burner, usually consisting of power of several megawatts, is set underneath the opening for the envelope. It generates heat which is used to lift the balloon by way of buoyant force. Since the hot air produced inside the balloon is less dense than the air outside, it causes the balloon to lift off the ground. The principle that is responsible for this to work is known as Archimedes' principle. It states " that any object (regardless of its shape) that is suspended in a fluid, is acted upon by an upward buoyant force equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the object." The same applies to air as it does water.  This figure shows an object submerged in water. This is the same result of a ho

The AI, AlphaGo was created by scientists looking to improve artificial intelligence. Its purpose was to independently learn the ways of the complex Chinese board game, Go, from absolutely no knowledge of it at all. The AI ended up defeating the best Go players in the world with ease. A new version of the program, called AlphaGo Zero, faced off against its original self in 100 games of Go. The new program went undefeated, winning 100-0. Pictured: AlphaGo versus Lee Sedol Pictured: the ancient Chinese game of Go AlphaGo observed and analyzed games of Go, t hen played against itself as well to improve. It used and analyzed data gathered from human games to learn. AlphaGo Zero eliminated the human data, instead learning and gathering data from playing games against itself. AlphaGo Zero was given only the rules of the game, and taught itself by playing games against itself, beginning with completely random moves and eventually making well thought-out, efficient moves. Zero is bette

Physicists have recently disproven a popular notion in theoretical science that humans are living in a simulated universe.  While for some, this may come as no shock, others, including high profile believers such as Tesla founder Elon Musk and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, will be disinclined to believe such evidence. Tesla founder Elon Musk has been outspoken about this theory, attempting to provide evidence on many such occasions.  Just this past year, Musk claimed that he was 99.9 percent certain that humans are living in a computer simulation (Rogers).  Musk stated that the advancements seen in technology over the past 40 years have been so drastic that they will continue and that soon it will be impossible to tell the difference between what is simulation and what is reality (Smart).  Arguments that favor the notion of a world of computer simulation where the simulation would not have to be an exact replica of what the actual reality is, it would just have to be close en

How Likely is it For Physics to Develop Teleporting?? Since before the release of the Star Trek movies where people teleport as transportation, people have wondered if and when a form of teleportation might be developed in modern times. Unfortunately, there are no real breakthroughs or a bright future for teleportation in the near future.. The US Air Force did a study on the progress and potential of teleportation of objects as it occurs in physics. They came up with several different possibilities: 1. Teleportation like SciFi, where things disembody and travel through space with futuristic technology (not continued to be studied). 2. Teleportation by psychic means: p-Teleportation. 3. Teleportation by engineering the vacuum/spacetime metric, where the spacetime vacuum or metric is altered to pass things through space. This is called vm-Teleportation. 4. Teleportation from quantum entanglement: where things are disembodied and transported in the quantum state of a system a

The movie Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was released in 2008 and it was the first Indiana Jones movie in 19 years. While the movie was well received and a major box office success, the movie was considered by some to be more of the same or “same old, same old,” while others called it the worst of the series. Regardless, the movie is indeed the “same old, same old” meaning that the movie has gaping plot holes which make no sense in regards to previous movies, plot elements and science. Since this is a physics blog, I am obviously going to be examining some of these scientific errors. The one I am going to be focused on is the scene early on in the movie where Indiana Jones narrowly avoids certain death by jumping in a refrigerator in a lightbulb moment. Miraculously despite being launched several hundred meters, Jones roll out unharmed and with his hat still on his head. This obviously could not have happened as he would have been dead in a multitude of ways. Alth