The Glare

The past week or so the beautiful island of `Oahu has been covered by dark clouds and continuous rainfall.  I was on my way home last night after dropping off a friend and I began to have a really hard time seeing where I was going due to the glare of the on coming car lights reflecting off of the water on the road and off of the front of my truck.  While I was driving I began to think of what we learned in physics about how the light reflects off of the water with an intial angle which is equal to the angle of reflection.  I also thought of polarization.  As the lights hit of the water on a horizontal plane, the reflection was horizontally polarized.  Unfortunately I did not have any sun glasses at the time, which are vertically polarized and would block the light but then again it was night time and it's quite odd if you wear sun glasses when there is no sun.

Sirens

In every neighborhood there is an emergency siren which is used to alarm everyone when there is any type of natural disaster occuring or about to occur. A month ago many of us were woken by this siren notifying the hawaiian island there was a tsunami heading our way.  The sound this siren makes always has the same frequency so people are able to recognize the sound but becuase the sound needs to reach so many people, the amplitude or volume of the sound is very loud.  Unfortunately for me and my family we live right next to the siren in our neighborhood so the every hour we were blasted with the loud annoying sound of the alarm.  Luckily this alarm helped to save some families across the islands because they were able to get to higher grounds.

IPhone Compass

Well this weekend I went to an event at UH, ya know college stuff. Anyway during a meeting which was totally meant for the parents and not the students I started looking through my phone. While I was looking around I found that I had a compass on my phone and it got me to thinking about physics.  In class we learned that I compass is made of a magnetized pin which is pull to the geographic north leading you in the right direction.  But on my phone, I know for sure that there is not pin inside of phone because i downloaded the app off of itunes, plus a magnet inside of the phone would ruin the device.  So it really made me think what is making the arrow on my phone compass point north. Well I looked up how the iphone compass works and apparently there is a chip in the phone which senses a low frequency RF signal.  This signal comes from a spot, North (apple build a Dharma station on the north pole), which has an accelerometer, the device can calculate the direction and orientation.

Cinderella' Carriage

So these past few weeks and especially this week my life has been centered around the musical, so naturally i thought I would connect it with physics.  Well as hopefully all of you know, in Cinderella there is a carriage which was once a pumpkin that takes Cinderella to the ball.  In the version we are putting on, this carriage in one that is light up, it is quite beautiful.  So one day when I entered the theater, the carriage lights were on and I instantly thought of physics.  In the past several weeks we have learned that light bulbs(resistors) can be set up in either a series or parallel circuit.  Now originally I would have thought the lights were in a series circuit since the are placed in a line, but after these few weeks I have learned that a string of lights are usually in a parallel circuit in case one of the bulbs burns out it will not effect the other lights since a separate current is carrying voltage to each bulb. So luckily if one of the lights burns out on the carriage, the show will still go on because the other bulbs are still shinning.
(Didn't have a picture of the carriage will get one posted tomorrow, but for now enjoy one of the horses that pull the carriage.)

Slidding

So this week I met up with my little cousin, Boston, at Hanahau`oli my elementary school.  This weekend Boston was attending his interview for the school and so my mom and my aunty thought it would be best if Boston came to the campus to get use to the environment.  After showing Boston the kindergarden classroom and other buildings we took him to the playground.  When we got there Boston developed a particular interest in the slides.  After he slid down once, he was hooked.  He soon started get tired of use slidding down and began to attempt to climb up.  Anyway, as we were sliding I remembered the days when I use to play on the slide and would get shocked when I touched the ground,  hated it. But what I didnt realize then was what was really happening.  As I slid down my body became charged and when I touched the ground or another person I would feel a shock that would neutralize my body.  Luckily, while Boston was playing he did not get charged enough to shock me.

Truck Torque

So for the past week or so, I have been enjoying my newly painted truck! And while doing so I realized that in a car there are many parts of the car that produce a torque and have a moment of inertia.  The first is probably the most obvious, the door.  The doors of cars are like many other types of doors. The handle is placed pretty far from the axis in so the lever arm is larger.  Since the lever arm is larger less force is needed to open the door.  So any time I open my car i produce a torque. The second item is the steering wheel.  When ever you drive a car you produce a torque because you are applying a force and the wheel has a lever arm which is equal to the radius.  The last part of the car I noticed was the seat adjuster.  Now alot of mornings i get in the car and I have to readjust the back of seat because it just never seems to be comfortable. So one morning i realized that ever time I adjust my seat I create a torque.  As I pull up on the lever I apply a force which is a certain distance away from the axis.  Now even though I just pointed out these three parts of the car, there are many other little things in a car that produce a torque. But most the time we don't stop to notice it.