Mixing It Up!

This past weekend i had a dance performance here at Iolani School. Here the students showcased different styles of dance such as hula, modern jazz, balet, and hip hop. Not only was the dancing amazing but also the lighting. Durig my solo, i think they had a blue background with a white spot light on me. And for other dances, they varied from red, blue, green, and white. Well in class, we were learning all about colors, and lights. I learned that from 3 primary light colors, you can have color by addition and create other colors. These primary colors are red, blue, and green. As i prepared in the wings and watched the other performances, i recognized the colors and i thought, "Hey we learned this in physics!"

Polarized Light

The next lesson were learning in physics is about electromagnetic waves and polarized light. i learned so much about it that i never knew. So this past week i discovered that the speed of gamma waves travel at the same speed as radio waves. I also learned that waves have vibrational planes, this leads on to my experiment with polarized light. I was amazed on how interesting my sunglasses could be. It was polarized! This meaning that the waves are vibrating in a transverse motion and off of a glare of light, you can have reflected polarization. When i put on my sunglasses, and tilted my head slightly at the reflected light off of the surface of the water, the light got blocked out because it had a vertical orientation. When you have a vertical orientaion and a horizontal one, you block out the light and therefore the sunglasses can be said to be polarized. If both the glasses were horizontally oriented along with the water, then the light would remain the same intensity as i tilted my head. Polarized lighting is soooooo cool!=) I love it! ( picture coming bc computer cant load it up.)

motors and generators

This past week i've learned alot about motors and generators. There are similarities between motors and generators. Each of these consists of a magnet, a coil, and a battery. These three very important parts are essential to many things such as computers, speakers, and televisions. A motor conducts energy and changes it into motion. The difference with a generator though, is that it takes motion and changes that into energy.So they work as opposites. To increase the magnetic field that gives off energy, you can add more loops on the coil and a good core in which the coil is wrapped around, or a bigger battery. I realized that there are many things at home that have motors or generators in it and i use all of these electronics daily. The more i learn about different things in physics, the more i recognize how cool it is. Like how something so simple can have so much meaning behind it. i love physics!

magnets

In class we have been talking about magnets for sometime now. Before, i never realized how there are so much magnets in things that i use daily at home. I used to think that only things like a magnet you stick on the frig or freezer to hold things were important magnets. After learning so much about them i know that there are different types of magnets. There are electromagnets and permanent magnets. An electromagnet is a temporary one that gets magnetized. A permanent magnet is always magnetic. A magnet is an object that creates a magnetic field and exerts a magnetic force. It has both a north end and a south end where the charges are strongest on the ends. The different south and north ends attract to their opposite charges. For example if you had two magnets and you put them near each other, if the two ends closest to one another are the same charge, the magnets will repel one another but if they are the different they will attract and connect. A magnet can become ferromagnetic which means that their charges get algned within the magnet making them magnetized. There's alot to know about a simple magnet. Its essential to many things that operate electronically. Physics is everywhere!{the picture is of two magnets on my frig!=)}

class so far

My impressions on this course is that the labs and demonstrations are super cool and fun! I really came to enjoy physics. However, some of the concepts are hard to fully grasp which makes the assignments hard to complete.Such as the electricity and the magnets. But other than some difficulties, class is something i look forward to everyday. Not to mention, our class has the most clowns and fun people in it. =) My goals are to be able to recognize physics in everything and be able to decipher how it works. Also, i want to have fun with every lab and project. I think i could improve on doing all my homework on time and if i don't understand something to ask for help! My effort is fairly good. I had a few late assignments, mainly because i lost my book, but i think for the most part i have gotten my work done. I participate in labs and always take notes. Well i love this class. nuff sed!=)

This whole week we have been talking about electricity. Well this past weekend, i was bored because i had to clean my messy room. And i got tired and i began to space out and stare at my light/fan. It reminded me of physics. They're are circuits in the walls of my house that are connected to the light switch and when i flip it on, the electrons flow in a current that generates energy and the light goes on. I also dazed off at the outlet in my room. I remember talking about the voltages in class and how in order to have a current, you need to have a voltage diferrence and a continuous path. A electrical current measures the rate of which the electrons flow and the amount of charge that flows per second. It relates to what we call the Ohm's law which is I=voltage diffeference/resistance. This shows how the current depends on the amount of voltage difference and the amount of resistance in a circuit. There are alot more concepts to what we learned this past week, but when i was laying down in my room i remembered circuits and voltage. It was a good thing because i was able to recognize physics and think about what makes a light switch go on, and by doing this i was actually studying for my test!=)

Swinging Pendulum & Endo

For our senior pages or collages, our varsity soccer team had to get together and take photos. In the meantime while waiting for everyone to arrive, Nicole Endo and I were taking random pictures. She was bored and started to climb up the baseball fence poles and hang off of it. Shes crazy! This is where i realized she was acting like a pendulum. Physics! A pendulum swings back and forth. If we had, we could have measured the period of the pendulum or in this case, Endo's to-and fro motion in seconds. And we could have also calculated the frequency of her swing which is the number of times she swings back and forth in a given time. Frequency and period are related but the fact that they are recipricals of each other. For example, if the frequency of Endo's swing was 3 Htz/s, then the the Period would be 1/3 seconds. But sorry we didn't! Once again phyics is in action whether you notice it or not. Its all around us!=)

The Doppler Effect and Searching From Grandma

Last weekend my great-grandma went missing and through miracles and prayers, she was found two days later. The thing that scared me the most was the fact that she has alzhmiers and dementia which means she doesn't remember anything. For all we knew, she could have been anywhere. I remember driving down street and after street asking everyone we saw if they had seen her. After long hours of searching, i heard an ambulance pass by. The weird thing is, i had this feeling in my heart that my grandma might be in it. Sure enough, the house phone rang and it was the police. They said that a hiker had found her car off the ledge of kaena point and her ways down in bad condition uncontious. Besides the accident, I experienced the doppler effect. As the vehicle approached me, the sound was louder than it was when it passed me. This is because the sound was occuring more frequent in front of the vehicle than in the back. This made it seem like there was a change in the pitches of the siren when in reality it just stays the same and constant. The doppler effect is the change in frequency. I do not have pictures of this ambulance because at the time, i didnt have a camera however i do have pictures of my grandma's car that we had to go retrieve. This shows how in every situation, good or bad, physics is all around us.

boogy boarding in a pool of waves

Two weekends ago i went to my friend Tami's house for her dad's birthday barbeque. We ate at her house and drove around in the car having a jolly ol' time. We also swam in her swimming pool where we had this crazy idea that someone would jump in the pool and make a lot of huge waves and everyone else would try to use the boogy board to catch the waves. This is where the physics part comes in. Travis jumped in the pool feet first trying to create the waves that Keenan would catch and try to ride. The first time, Travis' waves were tiny and Keenan had a hard time moving but the the second time, Daniel,who is heavier in weight, created bigger waves and alot of them that had carried Keenan and Travis across the pool. This means that the second time, we had increased the wavespeed by having a person that weighed more jump the exact same style and place as the first person. The greater the mass per unit length and tension had increased the wavespeed therefore creating more waves in a shorter amount of time. As the frequency increased, the wavelengths decreased. Waves are produced by vibrations and it transported the energy from the jumping boys into the water and carried everyone else from one side of the pool to the other. This is an example of a transverse wave in which the motion of the medium is perpendicular to the direction of the actual waves. This means that the water is actually moving up and down and staying in place while the waves and vibrations are being carried lateral. Physics is everywhere and its cool how we can all recognize it!