Fizzy Drinks and Light Bending hijinks

So I had a sprite today in a cup while I was doing my homework. It just so happens that there was a lamp that was on my desk that was shining light on the cup of soda. Here, I realized that the beams of light coming from the lamp, (red, blue, green) were going through the plastic of the cup, the fluid, the bubbles, and the ice. They were probably being bent in all sorts of directions because they were moving through different mediums. When the light hit the liquid it probably slowed down, and if it traveled through the ice it probably slowed down even more. The plastic of the cup also probably caused it to refract. I'm unsure about how it would move through the bubbles however, or if it would even go through. The bubbles are air, but of a different composition then the one of the surrounding room. The light probably travels through it at a different speed, being bent.

Inside the wire

In this downward spiraling economy, i try to cut corners on spending. This week, i did so by trying to cut open one of my broken headphone connections and reattach it to another. Cutting open the wire, I noticed that there were three wires, green, red, and a copper looking one. From past physics knowledge i know that the green wire is reflecting green waves and absorbing the red and blue ones, and that the red wire is reflecting red and absorbing green and blue. The copper wire is reflecting red and green and absorbing blue. I got to thinking that when enclosed, these wires probably don't have any color since there is no light to reflect off of them.

Lights, Radio, T.V, Everyday

This is a picture of a radio that we have around the house that we hardly use. However, these pictures come from a time when there was a power outage and we were huddled in the living room listening for any news on the radio. The radio waves that this radio was receiving during this power outage happened to fall in the electromagnetic spectrum. Specifically, around 88 to 108MHZ, because it was FM radio. I'd venture a guess to say that we were receiving a frequency around 92MHZ during the power outage. I am one of the few people who does not have cable t.v. As a result we have to adjust the antennae or "bunny ears" as some call it, to get good reception. Often times, what happens is that I will hear the radio when I am adjusting the frequency. This means that whatever frequency the t.v station is broadcasting at, must be the same frequency the radio station is broadcasting at. However, I've always wondered (at least since taking physics) if there could be some wave reinforcement or partial cancellation going on when this is happening. Often times, the signal goes bad when I hear the radio on my t.v, so what may be happening is the radio signal and the t.v signal may be combining to cancel partially. I wouldn't go as far as to say that the crests and troughs are overlapping completely to cancel out the wave, because I still get a partial signal. Watching CSI with reggae interludes is not fun.

An Extensive Physics Blog: A Midterm Post-Mortem on Concept Physics and Life and an expose of a Physics illiterate on Physics in the World

Thoughts on Physics
Why are we required to take physics? What benefits does it provide to those who see physics as an unimportant component to the progression and fulfillment of their lives? Like many who have posted this before me, I could say that Concept Physics provides me with a more thorough and less ignorant view of physics related concepts in the surrounding world. It does. Concept Physics really does open up Physics for those who are sufficiently less scientifically and mathematically inclined. Mr. Kohara does an excellent job of making the subject more tantalizing to those whose palates react adversely to the effects of scientific understanding.
The honest truth however, is that despite having an enthusiastic teacher, I don't take physics as seriously as I should. This is evident through my failing quiz, test, homework and blog scores. It's probably because I don't value science as much as I do other subjects such as English or History. At Iolani, classes, especially AP courses, tend to be very demanding. We are literally buried under assignments and the time-consuming burdens of studying for countless quizzes and tests.
This is due to structure. Iolani tends to be very linear and textbook oriented in their approach towards learning. The majority of the Iolani workload is very book oriented and causes hands-on approaches to learning to suffer. A big part of the reason non-linear approaches to learning are at a disadvantage is because of the value Iolani places on numbers. Success at Iolani is usually gauged by percents and deciles rather than a real understanding of the subject. Students are so caught up in "making the grade" and not always in what they are learning. As a result, hands-on approaches to learning suffer because it often does not contribute directly to a percentage grade or deciles. Students just don't seem to take non-linear learning as seriously and this puts Iolani students at a disadvantage.
Concept Physics has been the most non linear, hands-on class I've taken so far, aside from Writing for Media. We did video journalism in that class, something that differed from the normal papers that students are used to writing. Many students passed off the videos as being something simple, unimportant, but also fun. However, as any journalist will tell you, making a news video is not easy. There are hours of footage to edit through, sound and audio bytes that need to be fixed, quotes that need to be attributed, and more. However, because the video wasn't a paper, students put less effort and placed less importance on the assignment. Some of the videos came out really crappy.
I think Conceptual Physics is suffering from a similar fate. Though the labs and class activities may seem lax to some, I don't think they are any less important than the learning that is accomplished through vigorous use of textbooks and quizzes seen in other classes. Concepts Physics has allowed me to get my hands dirty and analyze how the mechanics work for myself. But this deviates from the type of learning we are used to, and results in students placing less effort and devotion to that class. It's an Iolani syndrome.
I became one of those students this year. I wrote off Concept Physics as an unimportant class. By doing this, I gave in to the Iolanian system of understanding for the sake of a successful grade. Although I had been learning about physics for the past quarter, I hadn't been paying attention. Like a drone, I have been mindlessly trying to memorize and understand for the sake of doing well, but not for the sake of learning physics. My goal for the rest of the quarter, and for the quarters to come, is to not write off this class as unimportant just because it is a differently structured and conceptual physics class.
I think there is a difference between succeeding in this class with an A and succeeding in this class with an understanding. I sincerely hope that I can leave this class with a greater appreciation and understanding for Physics but that won't be possible until I can enter the class, and Iolani, with the correct mindset. But yeah, aside from that Physics has been fun.

I don't really have a suitable picture for this blog post, so I'll leave you with a promotional track from an obscure band from deep within America's indie rock scene. It kind of represents how I'm feeling about physics right now. And it might be a little different from what you're used to listening to. It is indie, after all.

Over the Pond - The Album Leaf


Magnets and Refrigerators
Pretty much every household in the United States is bound to have magnets on them. As Americans, we tend to like to post junk to the place we get our food.

Why?

My house happens to be no different. There are tons of magnets on my fridge, but a certain one caught my eye. Probably because there was a coupon for steak behind it.
But there is a considerable amount of physics involved in these removable, junk holding placeholders that we take for granted. Now, I don't know much about refrigerator magnets, but I can carelessly deduce a few things about them from observation.
1) Everyone knows that the rule with magnets is that like charges repel and opposites attract. This brought up a few questions concerning refrigerator magnets. If refrigerator magnets can be attached from any angle or side, what is the charge on the fridge? Is the door of the fridge positive or negative? Perhaps the door is just a piece of metal, such as Iron, that magnets can attach to. This would explain why both the supposed north and south poles of my horseshoe kitchen magnet can stay attached to the fridge.
2) The horseshoe magnet's charge can hold a steak coupon to my refrigerator door, but since the north and south poles are so close to each other, they must cancel out.
3) This horseshoe magnet is about as close to owning a horse than I will ever get in my entire life.

Meet Charlotte
Well, today you get to meet Charlotte. I met Charlotte at a music store in Pearlridge and have been in love with her ever since. Well, mostly. Over the past year, I have neglected to spend time with Charlotte, my lovely GSA60. She sits in my room, all alone, lonely, sitting in the corner while her beautiful factory blue paint starts to dull and collect dust. It's really a shame because Charlotte neck feels wonderful. I'd take it over a strat or les paul any day.
It really is all Elizabeth's fault. See Elizabeth is a Martin 0018, and although she is acoustic, she is very very attractive. However, she differs from Charlotte in several ways. When I pluck one of Elizabeth's strings, the strings vibrate and the sound waves from that string are amplified through Elizabeth's hollow body. However, when I pluck one of Charlotte's strings, the string vibrates and that vibration is sensed by the electric pickups on Charlotte's body. Charlotte has a solid body, not a hollow body like Elizabeth. She is electric. She is also magnetic. The pickups are magnetized which I'm guessing means there's some kind of field around there that helps absorb the signals from the string and turn them into electrical signals. Because of this, Charlotte can sing anything from a distorted moan to a clear clean note. Depending on what kind of box I attach her to. Wow, writing this physics blog has enticed me to spend more time with Charlotte!

Cologne and Electricity

So I was staring around, trying to figure out what to write for my physics blog when i stumbled across an untouched bottle of cologne that was forced upon me at a Singaporian airport a while back. I realized that if I rubbed my hand against my pillow, giving it a negative charge, and touched the square bottle of cologne, that the electrons would congregate around the edges. Then I realized I was wrong. The cologne bottle was made out of a sort of frosted glass. Glass is an insulator, so the electrons would tend to stay just at the point I touched because the molecules are tightly packed, restricting the flow of electrons.

Who knew so much physics could be derived from looking at a bottle, of unused, lonely, cologne?

P.S - I dropped my camera's memory card in a slot in my computer, so it is now stuck there. I'll post a picture once I can get it out.

Hair Combing Physics Action!

While I was combing my hair today, I realized that there were some electrical physics concepts going on. In fact, they had been going on for pretty much every day of the year I had combed my hair. Which comes out to about 36 days. When running the comb through my hair, electrons from my hair, through physical contact, travel to the comb. This causese the comb to have more electrons and have an overall negative charge. My hair became positively charged because it loss electrons, meaning that my hair had a greater amount of protons than it did electrons.

Waves

This is a picture from a while back, at that new Finding Nemo ride at Disneyland. With Submarines. Though I did not realize it at the time, there is a lot of physics action going on here. In this picture, the submarines moving around in the water are causing a disturbance and generating waves. The submarine ride is most likely generating bow waves. As the submarine moves forward, the waves will pile up in front. This happens becauase the submarine is moving faster than the waves that it is producing. The continuous overlapping of the wave crests makes the front end of the waves form a v shape, characteristic of bow waves.