Rainbows

This picture was taken during senior camp this year. it was rainy when we arrived which allowed for this rainbow to appear. when light hits suspended water in the air, it is both reflected and refracted. it is refracted when it enters the drop of water, reflected off of the back of the drop, and refracted agains when it exits the irregular surrface of the drop, thus isolationg indivdual rays of sunlight. when this happens we can see the individual colors as these isolated rays hit our eyes.

and the rainbow was actually way more awesome in person.

[IMG]http://i390.photobucket.com/albums/oo341/blake_/2008_1028picturesARElove0191.jpg[/IMG]

Where i stand

So far, physics has been generally intersting. as far as how the class has been. its pretty good. of course, i have a lot to improve on. its been fairly obvious that my orginization is terrible at times. i didnt do the best i could do in the class this quarter. however, im starting to get my orginization taken care of, so hopefully i'll be able to really improve the consistency in my work and get an a this time around. also, the last chapter was really interesting and made the last couple chapters make even more sense, so i hope the rest of the course remains as interesting.

an object at equilibrium

When an object is resting, wether it be on the ground, on a platform or suspended, or even if it is moving at a constant speed, the object is said to be in equilibrium. that is, unless a net force acts on the object, it will continue to do whatever it is doing, wether that be staying at rest or continuing its movement. so, when an object is at equlilbrium, all forces acting on the object are negated by an equal and opposite force. this wind chime is hangng from a ceiling by a string. because it is currently at reast, it is at equilibrium. in the abscenece of a breeze, there is no force to move i horozontally, while the string it is suspended from delivers exactly enough force to negate the downward pull of gravity.

I took this picture of a car being driven down a street near my house to domnstrate acceleration. now, the car had what i thought to be a constant velocity. however, acceleration happens anytime you either change speeed (which this car didnt) or direction. as this car went around the curve, he accelerated as the vector of his velocity changed. so, this ties into both the acceleration of past lessons and the current work with vectors and demonstrates the relationship between acceleration and speed and direction to vectors.

Blog 1

This is an example of physics. as i walked down the plastic piping (they are currently renovating the sewers or something near my house) i found that if i touched the metal rail, i would get shocked with thestatic electricity. the longer i walked down the pipe, the greater the shock. The rubber on the soles of my shoes takes electrons off of the piping as i walk down it because it is higher on the triboelectric series list of materials. so, when i touched the metal, the electrons are transfered to the metal in a process similar to that lightning undergoes.