Physics Behind a Boomerang

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.

Another aspect is gravity. You need a bit of lift force directed upwards. Otherwise, the boomerang will just drop to the ground. This explains why you need to throw the boomerang at an angle giving it a tilt. It also explains why a good boomerang will increase its tilt angle as it slows down. This is called lying over. A boomerang that has slowed down and laid over is easy to catch

Comments

Physics of Black Holes...Or Lack Thereof

Isabella Jacavone To comprehend how the universe works, we must dwell into the most basic building blocks of existence; matter, energy, space, and time. NASA's Physics of the Cosmos program involves cosmology, astrophysics, and fundamental physics intended to answer questions about the elusiveness of complex concepts such as black holes, neutron stars, dark energy, and gravitational waves. In this blog post, I'd like to elaborate on a subject that is very intriguing to me; Black holes. And more specifically, what would happen if we got near one. A black hole is anything but a hole, but rather an immense amount of matter compacted into an extremely small area. A black hole is caused when, hypothetically, a star four times more massive than our sun collapses into a sphere no bigger than 600 square km. To put that in perspective, that's about the size of New York City. B lack holes were predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity, which showed that when a...

Physics of Sound Dampeners and Active Noise Cancellation

Physics of Sound Dampeners and Active Noise Cancellation Sound dampening foam panels in a recording studio. ANC headphones worn by pilots and/or passengers in consumer aviation aircraft. Acoustic treatment of soundscapes has grown alongside the sound production industry. Whether through absorption panels, diffusors and cloud panels to treat a space or headphones placed directly over the ears of listeners, acoustic treatment comes in many forms. Environments are treated acoustically to absorb excess sound to prevent sound levels from crossing a threshold above which the desired goal cannot be had. Before getting into sound dampening, we must discuss sound. Sound is produced when an object vibrates (a form of oscillation) and temporarily displaces nearby air molecules causing a wave effect as the displaced molecules collide with their neighboring molecules. Sound waves are fluctuations in pressure as the initial displacement of molecules experiences collisions that in ...

The Physics Behind the Rail Gun

Magnets and Magnetic Fields: Magnets are well known for their ability to repel and attract other magnets and various pieces of metal, but what people seldom understand are the physics at work that cause such occurrences. Magnets are everywhere, from within TV's and cellphones, to the Earth itself, and they are all producing magnetic fields. For a particle, a magnetic field can be defined to be "a vector quantity that is directed along the zero- force axis" with a magnitude equal to the dividend of the magnetic force and the product of the particle's charge and speed, and for a bar magnet, the field is best demonstrated as arcs going from one pole to the other. With that said, magnetic fields can also be created; the basic principle of electromagnetism is that the movement of electrons through a conductor produces a magnetic field in the region around the conductor. This is the fundamental principle behind the workings of the rail gun. Unlike a bar magnet, a ...

LSA E Mech 2017-18

Search This Blog