So, the other day in orchestra Mr. Bill showed us something really cool. He took one of the cellos and showed us these standing waves. It was really amazing because you could see the nodes and actually count the waves....so weird....but cool at the same time.


Also, the other day, Diana and I went on an adventure!!! We got to check out doc's car!!!! It was an "epic" moment as Diana called it. So we were sent to retrieve some popcorn and cereal that resided in doc's car. Diana and I were really excited because we had never seen doc's car before. So, when we got to the parking structure, we decided to press the alarm for the car to find it...We finally found doc's car and we took the food and left...But as we left the parking structure, Diana and I realized just how EPIC this moment was and we decided to go back and take pictures!!!! So here they are!!!

Wow, so much physics in one weekend. First, on the Pear Harbor trip, I noticed conservation of momentum in the super-long movie that we had to watch. The ship was gonna shoot cannonballs or something and I was like "omg!!! conservation of momentum!!!" From that moment on, I watched the ship carefully, expecting it to move backwards away from the direction of the shot, and IT DID!!! Soooo coool. And, when we got to the Arizona Memorial, the oil that came out of the ship created different colors and that totally reminded me of the thin film refraction. Because the oil is of different thicknesses all over the surface of the water, we see the different colors. To add even more to my physics experiences, the family fair was full of parabolic motions!!! All those toss games, especially the dime one...you could see everyone's dimes traveling in the parabolic paths!

So, yesterday (or maybe the day before yesterday...I can't remember) we watched this video about the Vietnam War. Then, I see this plane dropping these bombs! And immediately, I think of projectile motion. So what happens is the plane is flying over the poor country that is about to be bombed. As the plane is flying, the bomb is dropped, giving the bomb an initial velocity similar to that of the plane. So, the bomb drops in projectile motion. Knowing the height of the drop and the initial velocity, it is possible to calculate where the bomb will hit and how long it will take.

Well...I'm kinda running out of physics topics to write about...especially since we're doing quantum and nuclear physics...But one thing that reminded me of physics over the weekend were those neon lights. So, my family and I were at Chinatown for dinner one night and on our way to the restaurant, I saw a bunch of those neon signs that glowed "OPEN". I was like "whoa!, physics!" Okay, so these the electrons of the gas in the lights are excited and then they jump to a higher energy level. When they give off the energy as they go back down to the ground state, they give off light depending on the amount of energy dissipated.

Lately, we've been using lasers for our labs, and this has triggered my new obsession over it. So, on Friday, Nikki, Julia, and I went outside to do our lab because the room was too dark. I happened to have the laser in my hand and I was playing around with it. We all sat down on a bench and started measuring. All of a sudden, I noticed that the bench reflected our faces and the trees. Then I decided to try out this "mirror" with the laser. I aimed the laser at the bench at an angle. I formed an imaginary isosceles triangle and put my hand where I thought the light would be refracted. And it worked!!! It was so cool!!! Then, we walked by the fountain and I said, "Oh my god! I wonder if the water could act like a mirror, too!" So I rand towards it and did an experiment. Nikki and Julia also observed with me. I did the same thing I did to the bench and it worked!! (This explains the picture of a random fountain). Anyway, Friday was pretty cool because I did three experiments in one day!

So, this this Mirage thing has two concave mirrors that face each other, with an object at the bottom and an opening at the top. What happens is that the light rays from the object travel to the mirror on the top and is reflected to the mirror at the bottom and then refracted again toward the opening. So, the image of the object is located at the point of the intersection of the rays. Since the rays intersect at the opening, we see an image there.

Hmm.... March already. How sad....getting closer and closer to finals....Im so pressured because of registration. I don't even know why I'm so worked up over it....gosh...yeah...well...to the real reason of this entry! MIRRORS!!!! Okay, so on Firday, my parents decided to take us out for dinner. While we were driving to our destination, I aaw a woman try to put on make up in the car, and guess what she was holding? A MIRROR OF COURSE! But not just a mirror, it was TWO mirros!!! Just like what we used in the lab! I noticed that the angle between the mirrors was acute so I imagined the light rays reflecting to create images....I never really saw the images, I just imagined them...

Wow....another week has passed...so fast...NOOOO!!! I need more time to grow taller!!!! Ooh! and now, we have a new member in our lab group! Nikki! I think this is a good addition because calculations will be much faster! Julia and I now have extra help!!! Yes!!! This is good especially because Physics has really gotten more difficult to understand, I really hope it gets better... Okay, enough of random stuff, let's get to the point!

Alright, here's a picture of the earth's magnetic field. you can see the blue and the orange representing the two different poles. I have no idea what that mess is in the middle...probably the different magnetic fields in the earth due to the different metals in the ground. But magnetic fields aren't just important in Physics! I wrote an APUSH journal entry about how the magnetic field was vital to American history because without the magnetic field, the Europeans wouldn't be able to find America and we'll all still be primitive apes. Okay, I'm tired...so this entry makes no sense at all...but just look at the picture...that should make some sense...

Spider Silk Lecture Reflection



To describe the spider silk lecture in one word, I would have to say AMAZING! I would never in a gazillion years think that spider silk could have so many uses and that a person could spend such a long time exploring a thin string created by a tiny creature. I was really impressed with Dr. Hayashi’s passion. Listening to this lecture, I could feel that she was passionate about her job. It made me wish that I could find something like that for me in the future. I have always hated spiders (actually, I despise any and all arthropods known to man), but after I went to this presentation, I was actually quite fascinated by them. I never knew that there were so many different kinds of silk. I had always thought that there were only two kinds of silk, a sticky one and a non-sticky one.

When Dr. Hayashi talked about how she got where she is today, I was surprised, inspired, and a bit relieved. I was surprised because what she came to love was all an accident. She never even dreamed of studying spiders and their silks and yet she is doing it today. It made me think, “Wow, you never know what might happen in the future.” It made me a little scared, but I was also a little excited because I’m curious about what might happen (I’m hoping it’ll be something cool). I was a bit frustrated because I have no idea what I want to be after I graduate. After hearing her experience, I’m not as worried because now I think it’s better to be “open minded” and just take everything as they come along.

I was glad I attended this lecture because I gained new knowledge, but most of all, I really liked how I got a useful life lesson out of this. I think I should try out NASCAR racing now.

So, I was talking to my parents about physics at dinner and my father decided to tell me about his childhood experiences with magnets. He said that if I rubbed a magnet with another iron piece, I would create another magnet. I was skeptic so I wanted to try it out to see if my dad was lying to me again. So I found a knife, a magnet, and a paper clip. First, I rubbed the knife against the magnet for a while. Then, I took the knife and put it by the paper clip and it stuck! When I rubbed the knife, gave my knife an excess charge and then it attracts a lesser charged paper clip! SO COOL!

Since we're doing stuff about the magnetic field, it is only fitting that I put a picture of a magnet here showing the magnetic field. Since the magnet has a positive side and the negative side, the iron shavings will be attracted to the magnet in the shape of the fields. So the lines in the picture are like the magnetic field.

I went over to my cousin's house for dinner this weekend and she wasn't feeling well. My aunt felt her forehead and then asked me to bring her a thermometer. I then immediately thought about physics!! I was like "OF COURSE!!! THE THERMOMETER IS LIKE THE ONE OBJECT THAT CAN BEST SUMMARIZE WHAT WE LEARNED IN PHYSICS!" ....well, kinda...anyway, since it's one of those normal non-electric thermometers, I decided to watch the liquid inside the thermometer go up. It was soooo coool!!!! Since the temperature outside of the thermometer (which is my cousin) is higher than that of the liquid in the thermometer, the heat will travel to the cooler thermometer and cause the liquid to expand. In the end, we found that my cousin had a high fever of 44 degrees Celsius. Poor cousin....

This weekend, my grandparents were cooking some sort of meat (I think it was pig feet...-_- but I'm not sure). Anyway, since this meat was supposed hard to cook and would take a long time, they used a pressure cooker. This pressure cooker is a lot heavier than the usual pots. It had a really heavy cover and you had to twist it a certain way to open it. The purpose was to increase the pressure inside the pot while keeping the pot from exploding. I immediately thought of the Isochoric process. Because volume is constant, and the stove is increasing the temperature, the presssure will increase due to the faster moving molecules. When the pressure it higher, the food inside will cook faster. Well, that's it for my Physics experience of the week. Enjoy! ^^

Wow! It's 2008 already. It's so sad because I feel so old now TT_TT. Well, it's 12:56 am right now and I don't know what else to say except that this is my response to the The World is Flat. But before that...



Something I thought I would like to share: Just a couple of days ago, I was on Yahoo! and something caught my eye about Indian women “renting” out their wombs. The article talked about how many Indian women are willing to carry the baby of couples who can’t have children. People are now outsourcing even pregnancies to other countries. After reading this article, I could not help but connect this to The World is Flat and how the world is leveling and how its people can now compete fairly.



Okay, now that that's done, here's my response:



The World is Flat Reflection

I had a lot of mixed feelings while and after I read this book. At the beginning, I was confused. There were many things that the author talked about that I did not understand especially when he was talking about the jobs in the “While I was Sleeping” chapter. But when I was reading, I felt like someone had just slapped me and brought me back out to reality, “Adeline, stop daydreaming. If you don’t, you will cry on the day of your graduation, and it won’t be because you’re sad to leave.”



While I was reading the book, it was as if I was struck by a spell that made me see nearly everything in the flat-world light. What surprised me was that, I saw this flattening business right in my own home. Since all the members of my family (except my sister and me) are Chinese immigrants, we see America as a heaven and the goal of life. Ever since I could understand what the adults were talking about, I saw them trying to get as many of their family to come to America. First, it was my grandparents, then my uncle, and then three of my cousins, and just this past summer three other relatives. They think that the only way to have a better life was to come to a place where even though success isn’t guaranteed, at least opportunity is. For a while now, my parents and my grandparents were talking about trying to get my other cousin to come to America. But only a week ago, I heard my mom say how it didn’t really matter, if my cousin doesn’t come to America. She will probably have many chances in China. I was somewhat shocked, it doesn’t matter anymore? Then, it struck me: this is proof that the world is flat, and if not, flattening. My cousins in China did not have a strong reason to come to America anymore because they now are able to compete evenly with everyone else and probably surpass them.



Although I feel glad for my cousins I, however was overwhelmed with sadness and despair. I kept on thinking things like “wow, I feel so much lower than everyone else”, “what if I can’t stick out from the rest of the flatness?”, “I’m afraid of my future, what should I do?” and especially, “WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO ME?!” Basically, I was put into a state of mental frustration and panic for a couple of days. I started questioning myself. Am I really working hard enough? Am I doing enough to try and protrude from this plane of people? Luckily, I got to chapter 6 on before any nightmares started appearing. I read about the “untouchables” (I really liked the comparison to the untouchables in India, it was kind of funny) and the different occupations that can never be outsourced (makes me wish I was J.K. Rowling). But one thing I realized while I read this book, was that this whole time, I was just aimlessly finishing homework and listening to teachers. I was just wandering around on an unknown island just doing whatever. But this book became a map for me. I know what the paths I can take and what to expect in the near future.



I really liked this book. It forced me to think about many things that I never thought of thinking or maybe just avoided on purpose. I was confused, glad, saddened, and inspired. I never thought that a book that went against what we learned in geography could do that. To me, this book was like a personal counselor, except the things it had to say was so much more factual, inspiring, and helpful than those of any real-life counselor has ever told me. Unlike other counselors, the book did not try to comfort me and tell me that grades aren’t everything when I sulk. Instead, it told me the truth about the world and offered me words of advice. How great! And all for a tiny fraction of our tuition! Not only that, but my cousin used her Barnes and Noble membership card so it cost even less for me!

Yaaay!!! It's December already!!! NOOOOOOO!!! Semester finals are coming!!!!! I can't believe we have a health assembly on a MONDAY!!! That is cruel and unusual punishment!!! It's unconstitutional!!! We should always have long homeroom on Mondays so that procrastinators can do their homework!!! And why do we always have a PCH test on Assembly days? What is the world coming to?!!!!

Well, back to physics.

Okay, so here's this object that is hanging from a vertical spring and like on the problem set, if we were to calculate the maximum acceleration, we'd have to use the Fnet=ma equation. But we must remember that the spring force isn't the only force acting on the object!! Since this thing is hanging vertically, gravity is also acting on the hanging object. So Fnet is -kx minus weight. Then, we can plug this number into the F=ma equation and solve for acceleration!! Haha!! I remembered, Doc!! But what was so cool was that when we were moving this weekend, I was up on the back of the truck helping my dad move the stuff, then, I had to go down back into the old house and get some more stuff. I didn't wanna use the elevator-ish back thing because it was too slow so I decided to jump down. My grandma got scared when I jumped and my sister was like "be careful!" After I landed I said, "No worries, peoples, I bent my knees and I lowered myself as I landed so I increased the landing time and this would decrease the impulse." Then my sister said, "you physics freak." So yeah, that's my physics experience for the weekend. (It doesn't stop there of course, but I have to study for PCH now so I can't entertain you with more of my everyday appliance of physics)

This is a picture of a spring from a pen. Well, right now, it's in equilibrium but if it is pushed/pulled (which means put a force), it will bounce back up and down. I'm guessing this is how the tip of the pen MAGICALLY hides itself inside the plastic part of the pen, the only difference is that there is something at the other side of the pen that stops the spring from going back and forth forever.

It's like 11 pm right now and I'm starting to get a little sleepy. I'm actually trying to do the thirty problems that Mr. Park said to do! Hopefully, it will help me on the quiz tomorrow. I really don't understand the whole Pascal's principle thing...I can solve some of the easy problems...but I don't really know what's going on, so Doc, if you actually do read our blog entries, I'm warning you ahead of time that you'll probably recieving a phone call from me before the test! So be prepared for stupid questions!!
Well, back to what I'm supposed to do for this entry. Above is a picture of a candle floating in a glass of water. Obviously, the weight of the candle is not greater than the bouyant force so that's why it's floating and not at the bottom of the glass. It was so funny because we were in history and Mr. Hackler was talking about boats/ships made out of steel and heavy material and how people back then didn't know that it could float. I immediately thought about bouyancy and Julia gave me a weird look, haha.

Okay, so I was in orchestra one day and we were playing this song (I forgot...maybe it was Pirates). Anyway, our stand was turned so that neither my stand partner nor I could see the music so I turned it. Right then, it was as if there was this heavenly light that shone on me and the stand and hallelujah music was playing I was like "TORQUE!!!!!!OH MY GOODNESS! TORQUE!" The force that I used to push the side of the stand was a torque because I made the stand turn on its axis. It was so cool! I was smiling throughout the rest of orchestra that day. Then at lunch I shared this exicting piece of information with Celia and Julia. Another funny thing was Mrs. Wherman was telling us to play at the part of the bow that balances, and I was like "OMG! CENTER OF GRAVITY!" and Amy turned around and smiled at me...and said something similar to "net torque is zero!" It was funny because people were giving us this weird look.

This is a picture of a young figure skater doing a spin in a very awkward position. (If you ask me, I think it's quite disgusting...how can she twist her body like that?! That's just wrong!) Okay, anyway, the line that I drew through her is the axis of rotation. I'm assuming that this position is probably a very difficult to spin in because the mass is not uniformly spread throughout the body. She must be super skilled.

In this picture of a uniform circular motion, the second hand is moving in the clockwise direction. It's angular speed is 0.105 rad/s.

This is a picture of me turning the top layer of my Rubik's Cube. Since I couldn't find anything new, I decided to do friction again. Since my cube is the not-so-good one from Toy's R Us, and because I don't Vaseline my cube like Sam does, it's a bit hard to turn the layers. The force that my finger puts on the first layer is in a straight line (at least that was what it looked like when I pushed the top layer about a hundred times) but the layer is actually moving around a sphere in the center of the cube, so the friction or most of the friction at least was coming from the part where the grooves in the surface of the sphere and the part that connects to the sphere.

CONSERVATION OF MOMENTUM:The total momentum of an isolated system is constant.
Assuming that there is no air resistance and there is no friction between the chess pieces and the table, the initial momentum of the red chess piece should equal to the final momentum of the green chess piece. I couldn't find marbles or take better pictures so it doesn't look like what I just said, but IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE THAT WAY!

In this picture, the water droplet is going to fall a height of "h". If I make the bottom of the sink as PE=0, then the drop of water's initial potential energy should be mgh.

In this picture, the two chains are divided equally as it hangs on the nail so the tensions in them are equal (assuming that the chains are massless). Since the picture isn't accelerating up or down, the summation of the y forces should equal to zero. So, the weight, mg, is equal to two times of tension times sine theta.