Electricity

My house is a parallel circuit. If my house wasn’t a parallel circuit (series circuit), I would only be able to use one outlet at a time. In a series circuit, resistors share voltage. This means that if the refrigerator was plugged in, I couldn’t use the toaster because there wouldn’t be enough electricity for use. Because my house is a parallel circuit, the total voltage is distributed to each resistor area and is not shared. This means that I am able to use have the refrigerator and toaster plugged in at the same time because each outlet gets the same amount of electricity.

Saving Electricity

For the past two class days in physics we’ve been learning about saving electricity. My electric bill is around $300. My father works at Hawaiian Electric Company as a machinist. After talking with him about conserving electricity and lowering the electric bill, he told me several ways that our family could help to lower the bill. Putting a timer on the water heater, taking cold showers, turning the shower off when you soap yourself, unplugging things (like fans) you don’t use constantly, hanging clothes instead of drying them and using a fan instead of the air conditioner are some ways that you can save electricity, along with lowering the amount of money my parents pay for the electricity bill.

Circuts

There are two types of circuits possible. One is a DC Circuit and the other is an AC Circuit. A DC Circuit is a direct current in which the charge flows one way. For example my Kindle is a DC Circuit. When I charge it, the charges from the wall go into my phone. My phone doesn’t give charges back to the wall, making it a DC Circuit. An AC Circuit is an alternating current. A conventional current is the direction in which the positive charges flow. I also learned the reason why the band ACDC got its name and why they have a lightning bolt on all their merchandise.

Capacitance

A capacitor is a device used to store an electric charge, consisting of one or more pairs of conductors separated by an insulator. It gets its name from the fact that it has a capacity to sore both electric charge and energy. A capacitor is like a battery in the sense that they both store electrical energy. Inside the capacitor, terminals connect two metal plates separated by a non-conducting substance or any non-conductive substance. Once one plate acquires a charge, the other acquires and equal and opposite charge. The greater the charge for a given voltage, the greater the capacitance is of the capacitor. An example of a capacitor is an electrograph. An electrograph is a machine used for the electrical transmission of pictures.

Electric Potential

This is a picture of a power strip and it exhibits electric potential. Electric potential is a measure of potential energy unit per charge, or in other words voltage. The power strip allows you to plug in multiple items to one outlet using only one plug. This words because the electrical currents go through the plugged in power strip and to the other outlets attached the original outlet. The potential energy is measured in joules and charge is measure in coulombs. The SI unit is joules per coulombs or volts. After googling about electric potential I learned that electric potential and electrical potential energy are two completely different things.

Insulators and Conductors

An insulator is a material or object in which charges are not free to move. In other words it’s a material or object that holds in charges and doesn’t move to other objects. It can also be an object that resists the flow of electrical current. Some examples of insulators are rubber, plastic, wood and glass. That’s why the coating around your electronic chargers is rubber or plastic, so you don’t get shocked. A conductor is the opposite of an insulator; it is an object or material that allows charges to move freely. Anything metal is a conductor of electricity, which is why all plugs are made from metal.

Positive, Negative and No Charge

 

A proton is a part of an atom that is positively charged. An electron is a part of an atom that is negatively charged. A neutron is a part of an atom that has no charge. Within the nucleus of an atom are protons and neutrons. Electrons orbit around the outside of the nucleus. In an atom, the amount of neutrons is usually the same amount of electrons with makes the atom electrically neutral. This happens because opposite charges attract to one another. And same charges repel one another. There is no reaction when two neutral charges are near one another.

What I Learned This Semester

This semester I honestly learned a lot more than I thought I would’ve. I wasn’t too nervous about taking physics because I’ve always liked science classes. I learned that my teacher teaches the concepts of each unit and it’s up to us as students to apply them to problems as well as everyday life. I really liked the momentum and energy unit. Because both have law of conservations, it made the whole concept really easy to understand. I’m a bit upset at myself because I could’ve done much better first quarter with the kinematics units. Now that I look at the problems and equations I feel really dumb for not being able to understand them. The second quarter was much better for me and I feel like I better applied/prepared myself for the tests and quizzes. Altogether I really look forward going to physics class. The learning environment is fun when it needs to be and I still learn a lot, which is perfect. I am really happy I got the teacher that I did because I feel like all my friends with the other physics teachers are suffering big time when I feel excited about physics. This semester I learned a lot about.

The Law of Conservation of Momentum

Momentum is inertia in motion. The Law of Conservation of Momentum is momentum cannot be neither created nor destroyed. This means that the momentum put into something is equal to the momentum that will come out of it. By the two being equal to each other, it means that momentum is always conserved. Even when other external forces act upon an object, there is always an opposite force that makes the momentum of the object equal. Both force and momentum are vector quantities and that the momentum conservation principles apply separately to each coordinate direction. Impulse is the change in momentum.

What is a force?

A force is defined as a push or pull. It is also defined as something that accelerates objects. If a single force acts on an object, its acceleration is found to be in the same direction as the force. If more than one force acts on an object, its acceleration is the direction of the vector sum of the forces. A normal force is perpendicular to the surface and is only acting upon an object when the object is on top of a surface, not in mid air or anything like that. The normal force occurs because when an object is upon a surface it causes a small force upon the surface of the countertop, just as the countertop does the same to the bottom of the object.

Potential and Kinetic Energy

Energy, in a physics sense, is defined as the ability to work. Work is the force placed on an object multiplied by its displacement or distance. Anytime the energy of something changes, it’s called work. There are two types of energy also. The first type is potential energy. Potential energy is energy stored in a system due to its position. My Hello Kitty toy shows potential energy because I was cranking the lever, which caused stored energy, or potential energy inside of the toy. The other type of energy is kinetic energy. Kinetic energy is energy in motion or something that is moving. Hello Kitty shows kinetic energy in the next picture because she is in the middle of moving sideward’s after I cranked the lever.

Egg Drop

This week my blog post will be about my egg drop project. My partner was Rachelle and in preparation for the egg drop project I spent a whole day after school at her house. We walked around in Target for two hours after brainstorming some ideas. We decided to use bubble wrap as our bag or container because that absorbs a lot of shock. Then on the inside we decided to use Timothy hay because we noticed that if you packed it in tightly, the egg on the inside wouldn't move. We also noticed that by stuffing the bubble wrap with something, it'd made the shape of the bubble wrap rounder which would've helped to absorb more of the shock. Unfortunately after all our hard work, the egg cracked anyway. It most likely cracked because it bounced, which was what we were trying to avoid entirely. I realized we could've done much more simpler things or even used cotton balls to stuff the bubble wrap instead of hay.

Collisions

 

I learned that there are two types of collisions when it comes to momentum. One is elastic collision and the other is inelastic collision. An elastic collision is one that is bouncy; the initial kinetic energy is conserved, meaning that the momentum transferred in from one object is equal to the transferred momentum out the other object. An inelastic collision is one that is sticky; the initial kinetic energy is not conserved, meaning that the momentum transferred in from one object is not transferred out the other. In inelastic collisions, the objects usually come to a stop and in elastic collisions the object that the initial momentum acted upon receives whatever the initial momentum transferred to it. A good example of this would be car collisions. Sometimes in car crashes the cars are squished together (inelastic) and sometimes one car is propelled from the other cars momentum (elastic).

 

Momentum

My definition of momentum is the amount of something it takes to make something move. I think it relates to acceleration, mass, magnitude and most definitely inertia. When I think of the word momentum I think of an object having to swing back and forth to a certain height in order to clear the distance of something. The Webster’s Dictionary definition is: the quantity of motion of a moving body, measured by a product of its mass and velocity. I was kind of close to the Webster’s Dictionary definition. Momentum has to do with the muchness of the moving of an object.

Newton's Second Law of Motion

Newton's Second of Law of Motion is that acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the net force on an object. But, the acceleration is inversely proportional to the mass of an object. This is a picture of my two brothers throwing two of the same size ball. I know that the baseball goes faster because the mass of the object is greater than that of the tennis ball. Newton’s Second Law also tells me that acceleration is inversely related to the mass of the object meaning that the more mass something has, the slower the acceleration would be. Also the less mass something has, the faster it will accelerate.

First Law of Motion

This is a picture of my friend Brachelle blocking a ball with another ball when she was playing dodge ball at our Ring Social this past Friday. This picture shows Isaac Newton’s First Law of Motion, which is objects in motion will tend to stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside, unbalanced force. The green ball in the picture coming towards Brachelle remained in motion until she hit it away with the purple ball which acted as the outside, unbalanced force that stopped the green ball from remaining in motion. Newton’s First Law of Motion also states that objects at rest will tend to stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside, unbalanced force.

Extra Credit

Cars

A vector is something that shows direction and magnitude. An example of a vector is a car. A car goes in a multitude of directions and can travel at many different speeds. I had a behind the wheel with my driving instructor and I noticed that cars relative to me and are going the same speed appear to be going no where from me, they look it looks like we are moving as one. Also, I noticed that when cars are opposite from the median relative to me, they appear to be passing really fast even though they are probably going the same speed. They appear to be moving really fast because they are going in the opposite direction.

What is A Vector?

A vector is a quantity that is specified by both a magnitude and a direction. Magnitude is muchness and direction is in which way something is going. An example of vector would be arrow. An arrow points in directions and tells you how far you can go. You usually find arrows on signs, directing people towards places. Along with the sign, you usually find how far you need to go in the direction that you intend on going. The half arrow above the letter A in my picture is symbolizes that the arrow above is a vector and it’s called boldface.

Running For Days.

My friend Ilihia is such a committed athlete. She always finds time to run either during school or afterwards. Her goal is to run at least three miles per day. However, Ili tells me that throughout the time she runs, she doesn't run at a consistent speed. Sometimes she slows down or speeds up, depending on her mood. In other words this relates to Physics because, Ili changes her acceleration and speed over the period of time she runs. She may run 3 feet per 5 seconds at one point in time and after she gets tired she might run 3 feet per 10 seconds. So if you were to find her average, it wouldn't be accurate because of the fact that she doesn't run at a consistent speed.