Entry Seven: My Physics Blogs Reflect the Blackness in my Soul

We still have not learned anything new beyond forces yet, so this next installment of Vladimir's Physics Blag will also relate to Newton's Three Laws.  Until we learn something new, these posts will continue to be uninspired and lame.  

This Thursday, we went to Bellows for class day.  We played a game of tackle keep away, and we tossed around a ball.  The thrower exerted a force on the ball causing it to be launched into the air.  While in the air, the ball was acted on by gravity, which is always downwards.  Otherwise, there were no other forces acting upon the ball.  The net force on the ball was not 0, since it was accelerating downwards.  That's all I got.  

Class day with the football.  Look at Matt Talavera (far left), he looks like a leaping leprechaun, grasping for an egg roll.  

Entry Six: I Took a PSAT and I Liked It

Not really. But guess what I observed that day? Yes, even during the test I took the time to examine some pee to the aitch to the why to the ess to the eye to the cee to the ess. More specifically, action-reaction forces and friction. If (a rather bored) one were to draw an FBD of my pencil during the test, it would include the force that I applied on it down and forwards, the vertical force of the table pushing back (Normal force) and the horizontal force of friction. To find the force of friction, which is in this case kinetic friction, the normal force of the table is multiplied by the kinetic friction coefficient. I don't know what that number is, but I could find out if i wanted to. Needless to say, since my pencil was not accelerating, my fnet=0N. Straight up, I hope all the twelve year-old Chinese and Indian prodigy children who took the PSAT did worse than me so I can be a National Merit Scholar.

I ate that sh*t up

Entry Five: Whatever

I'm really tired and I don't want to try very hard at this.  Ok.  I play the bass, and there are four strings.  There is tension pulling up on the tailpiece at the bottom of my bass through the string, and at the other end of my bass on the tuning peg.  The tension is uniform throughout the string.  Varying tensions affect the pitch of the note when I bow or pluck the string.  The tension of each string is different because the mass of the strings is different according to the formula Fnet=mass*acceleration.  I'm done.  

Me and My friend Kiyoe holding basses.  

Entry Four: Death Box

Fact: Elevators kill. A report written by Michael McCann and Norman Zaleski for the Center for Construction Research and Training claims that according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 68 elevator-related deaths were reported between 1992-2003 among people who used them at work. The report also states that "(a)lmost all the fall deaths involved falls into elevator shafts, including 18 deaths where an elevator door opened and there was no elevator car. The 'caught in/between' and 'struck by' deaths often involved getting caught in the elevator door or between the elevator and door or shaft."

That's no good.

Nandesuka--!

Despite the grave statistics, I risked my life and got in an elevator this weekend. My friend Grace, her dog Sheeba and I took the elevator from the fifth floor to the ground floor in order to walk her Sheeba. When we descended, my weight remained the same since my mass and the force of gravity did not change, but the normal force acting on me decreased, so I felt lighter. Once we started moving at a constant velocity, the forces became equal once again and I felt normal. At the bottom of the elevator shaft, the normal force increased, so I felt heavier. Yeah, I think I got that right.

Sheeba.