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.