Lights Are Everywhere

     Lights are literally everything you see.  The only way we can see things we can see reflect light, thus allowing us to see them.  The color black is actually the absence of light.  Since there is no light reflecting off of an item that appears to be black, it will bee seen as black.  This is true for everything you are looking at.  Bananas are yellow, but why?  The certain frequency allows bananas to appear yellow to us.  All the other colors of the ROYGBIV spectrum are being absorbed with the exception of yellow.  When all the colors are being absorbed, the color white will be seen.  Light is an amazing thing that allow us to see things.  

Energy Saver

Since electricity is not free, it would be nice if we could save some of it. Not only to save money, put also to save precious resources. 

Our energy saving project was designed to help us find our own solution to energy conservation. A while back, I projected that to would be able to conserve energy by reducing the air condition usage, tv usage, and the unnecessary use of lights. 

After a few months of this process, there was no significant change in the energy usage in kWh. Althogugh I carried out the plan, it was not enough to make a significant change in the amount of energy used. 

Water Waves

Living on an Island in the middle of the ocean, it is easy to assume that we have all seen waves.  While that ay be true, not everyone completely understands the way waves work.  Wave speed and size is reliant on the wind that is present at the time.  The more wind, the more energy is put into the ocean thus creating waves. 

When a wave reaches the shore or reef, it often breaks creating somewhat of a barrel.  This is due to the depth of the water.  When the water gets shallower, the top of the wave continues to travel at the same speed.  This will cause the top of the wave to continue moving at the same speed.  This will cause a wave to break creating a barrel.  

Superposition

Superposition is the resulting displacement of a medium at any location, its the algebraic sum of the displacements where they meet.  When two waves interfere with each other, they either combine and build up or they cancel each other out.  

When they build up, it is known as constructive interference.  This will only happen when two waves are traveling on the same side.  The result of this would be the sum of the two waves combined.  

Destructive interference is when the waves are traveling on opposing sides and they can result in total cancelation and having no wave at all.

Waves pass through each other as opposed to bouncing off of each other.  This allows the constructive or destructive interference to occur.

Waves

     A wave is a disturbance or oscillation that travels through space and matter.  A wavelength is literally the length of the wave.  A complete wave consists of a trough and a crest.  Waves are things that occur everyday in pretty much everything that we do.  The ocean has waves and it is very to easy to see the different parts of a wave in an ocean wave.  The trough and the crest are noticeable.  Another obvious example of a wave is sound waves.
     There are two types of waves, transverse waves and longitudinal waves.  Transverse waves are waves which the energy of the wave and the energy given off by the wave are perpendicular to each other.  Longitudinal waves are ones which wave energy and the energy from the wave travel parallel to each other.  Sound waves, like ones given off by this speaker, are longitudinal waves.  The reason is that both paths of energy travel in the same direction.

Multimeters

A multimeter is an instrument with various uses. It is used to measure current, voltage, and resistance.  It is a valuable asset that can help us solve many mysteries.

Outside the classroom, a multimeter has a number of valuable uses. One of which is to partially diagnose your car. If for some reason, your car refuses to start, it could be a number of reasons.  However, when these car troubles emerge, people tend to think the batteries are dead. So they call a friend, have them drive 3 miles in 35 wonderful traffic minutes only to discover that the battery was never the issue.

Multimeters can prevent stories like this from occurring once again. If there is reason to believe that a car battery or any battery is dead, all it takes is 30 seconds with a multimeter. The meter will give a voltage reading and with that, you can determine whether or not the battery is working. Multimeters also read currents so you could infer if there even is a current flowing through the electrical circuit. All in all, multimeters have various uses and should be in the homes of all Americans.

Saving Electricity

     Electricity is a valuable resource that many of us are very fortunate to have. We wake up in the morning, some of us to our alarm clock, then we turn on the light, make breakfast in the toaster or maybe the microwave or even just grab something from the refrigerator. These are just a few things we use everyday that require electricity.  If we didn't have electricity, this blog wouldn't exist. So electricity is great, right? Well like many other great things in this world, electricity is not free. We pay big electricity companies to send electricity to our homes and even for them, it's not free. Many power plants use heat by burning coal.  There is only so much coal in the world, so what happens when we can't find any more?  That is why conservation of electricity is so important.

     The project I am currently conducting is measuring the amount f energy I use in my home. I will attempt to not only find out how much electricity is being used but also try to reduce the amount I use. The idea is that I will save a significant amount if electricity. Things like my stove or television use a load of power.  I will see how much electricity I am able to save. The hope here is that we are more aware of our electricity use so we can have it forever.

Circuits (parallel and series)

     A parallel circuit is a circuit that divides into two or more paths before coming together again.  

     A series circuit is connected along one path.  

Series circuites are connected on one path therefore the resistors that occur on the circuit get all the same current.  In order to find the Req we need to know what Req is.  Req is equivalent resistance.  Equivalent resistance is a resistance that represents the total ohmic value on the circuit.  So if there are 3 resistors on a circuit, and each has a value of 10 ohms, then to find Req, all we have to do is add them up.  

R1 + R2 + R3= Req

10Ω+10Ω+10Ω=30Ω

So for this particular equation our Req would be 30Ω.  

Parallel circuits are different from series circuits.  One of the major differences is that if a resistor in a parallel circuit gets cut off from the rest, the current would still flow. Also, the circuit in a parallel is divided into different branches.   We can see parallel circuits in our everyday life, for example this surge protecter is connected by a parallel circuit.  

Electricity

     We learned about electricity and how it works. One of the specific things I learned is Ohm's law.  The formula for Ohm's law is I=VR where I is current, V is voltage and R is resistance.  So what is Ohm's law?  Ohm's law states that the current through a conductor between two points is directly proportional to Potential Difference across the two points.

     We also learned a little about how electricity and batteries works.  Batteries have a charge inside them.  When metal touches their ends their electrons flow and it allows the battery to power what ever it is connected t=to>  This allows many of our things to be portable and convenient to us.

Electricity

     What is electricity?  Electricity is a form of energy that consists of charged particles like protons and electrons.  Electricity is important because so many things in our lives require electricity.  Our phones, televisions, stoves, refrigerators, even our watches and cars use electricity.  If we didn't have electricity, we wouldn't have the convenience that we have today.  We wouldn't be able to do things like watch the olympics.

     Electric current is the flow of electricity through a conductor.  A good example of this is the wires in our homes.  They carry an electric current through them.  When a current goes through a resistor, it experiences some resistance.  This means that in order for the electricity to flow, it needs more voltage than usual.  Resistors just require more voltage for electric current to flow.  

Capacitance

     Capacitance in the ability of an object to store an electric charge. We often see these in every day life in things like batteries.  The formula to find C, or Capacitance is 

C=q/V

C= Capacitance

q=charge

V= Voltage 

A battery is a great example of capacitance or something that can hold an electric charge.  The reason our remotes, cars, and phones work is because of the battery and the ability the battery has to hold an electric charge.  If it was not for capacitance, nothing requiring electricity to work would be portable.  Everything would need to be connected to something that can power it like the outlets in our walls.  Nothing would be able to store electricity.  

Electric Potential

Electric potential is the electric charge between two points in a circuit.  Electric potential is seen in our every day life in things like metal door handles or door knobs.  The reason I say this is because a door handle contains a lot of electricity and is charged.  Therefore when someone touches it, the charges are transferred and the person feels a small shock.

 In the picture above, this individual could have been shocked due to the electric potential that is stored inside of the door handle.  The charge in this particular system is present between the door handle and the person.

Electrostatic

     This week we learned about electrostatics.  Some of the things we learned was that opposite or unlike charges attract and like charges repel from each other.  This is important to remember because it can sometimes help us find how many charges are present within a given system.  Another thing we learned was that conductors are materials that allow electric charges to travel freely.  We see conductors a lot in our daily lives.  One of those places is in our own very house.  When we look behind our TV we see a series of wire.  Those wires carry electric current to the TV from the wall and allow the TV to work.

     The wires are the conductors for the TV.  Surrounding those conductors are insulators.  Insulators prevent electric current from flowing.  Those insulators are protecting us from electric shock.