Richard Feynman – Science and Chess

by admin on January 4, 2010

Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman compares science to chess. In chess you might also observe a game and thus deduce ‘laws’ or rules.

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How to Simplify Physics Problems

by admin on December 4, 2009

To make physics simpler, an object can be approximated to act like it has all its mass concentrated at a single point.

This single point is called the ‘center of mass’. If the density of the object is uniform, it is simple to compute.

For instance, if a metal rod is of uniform density, the center of mass is just the center of the rod.

Techniques of integration can be used for more complicated situations, but clever analysis of an object can allow you to understand if it is symmetric about an axis or be twice the amount of one side of it.

Observations like these can lessen the work necessary.

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Physics of Freeway Entrances

December 3, 2009

On round freeway turnouts there are almost always signs that say to slow down to a lower speed.
The reason for this is that the frictional force of the tires on the road will not always be enough to keep a car under control at a higher speed.
Two devices that civil engineers use when constructing roads [...]

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Momentum, Baseball Bats, & Superstition

September 23, 2009

In any given system the total momentum will remain constant.
For the case of Sammy Sosa, a corked bat is lighter and might therefore be swung faster, but momentum is mass multiplied by velocity, so the higher velocity will be cancelled out by a lesser mass.
Also the bat is only in contact with the ball for [...]

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Moments of Inertia & Spinning

May 27, 2009

Different types of moments of inertia can be better suited to different purposes and situations.
If you wanted to store power in a spinning object, you could store more power in an object with a greater moment of inertia since it would be harder to both start and stop the spinning.
However, for something like a bicycle [...]

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Impulse and Momentum

May 26, 2009

Closely related to momentum is impulse (denoted by J), which is simply the initial momentum subtracted from the final momentum.
The idea of impulse is important in things like mechanical engineering in which objects crash into each other.
The late scientist Harold Edgerton was able to further examine impulse and show how bodies interact when they crash [...]

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Using Conservation of Energy for Motion Problems

May 25, 2009

In motion problems you can use the truth, but you can also sometimes use the principle of conservation of energy, and it is often simpler.
In a closed system, energy will not be created or destroyed, but it can change forms, ie from potential energy to kinetic energy.
In the carnival game where you try to roll [...]

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Friction

May 17, 2009

The less wise of a group of monks, after hearing the equation x-x0=v0xt and rushing away from the physics lecture, thought that if they gave building blocks a simple push they would continue moving until stopped by another push.
They believed that by utilizing this piece of knowledge they could easily build a grand monastery of [...]

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Feynman Lectures on Physics

May 16, 2009

Richard Feynman pioneered the field of Quantum Electrodynamics and won the Nobel Prize in physics.
He went to school at MIT and Princeton and went on to later teach at Caltech.
Feynman also traveled to Brazil and even played in Carnival on drums when he was down there.  Had an interesting life.
At Caltech, a series of his [...]

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Springs – Kinetic Energy & Potential Energy

May 15, 2009

If you pull on a spring like a slinky it’s going to be pretty easy to stretch it, but if the spring is something more like that from a car’s suspension, it will be more difficult– the difficulty in pulling the spring is denoted as K (the particular spring constant).
On the topic of springs you [...]

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