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.  

Power/Work/Force

This week in physics we learned about force, power, and work. We learned that work is equal to force multiplied by distance. So W = fd. This means that the farther you go, the more work you do. Force is equal to mass*acceleration. Then there is power. Power is equal to work divided by time.
These are all related in some ways.  In the picture above, you can see the route the receiver ran. If his acceleration was 2m/a and he has a mass of 89kg then his force, 98kg(2m/s) is 196N. Now that we have the force we can find the work. Work is just force(distance). If the receiver ran 25m then the work would be  w= 196(25) = 4,900 J.  Now with the work we can find power with work divided by time. So it could be 4,900/4 which is 1,225 W. And that's how we find power

What I Am Thankful For In Physics

So far this year in physics we learned about things like momentum, motion, and vectors.  But the thing I am most thankful for is Newton's first law.  An object in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by an unbalanced outside force.  The reason why I like this is because it can apply to sports.  For example in baseball and football when the ball is hit by either a football or by a bat, force is applied to it causing it to accelerate.   If there wasn't an unbalanced and outside force called gravity the ball would keep flying and flying.  But because of gravity the ball falls.

Momentum

     One thing we learned this week was momentum and how it works.  Momentum can be defined in different ways however they are fairly similar.  One definition I have is: Momentum is the speed or force of forward movement.  An example of this in real life is when on car gets into an accident with another.  A lot of times, accidents occur in parking lots or when people aren't paying attention at a stop light.  When one moving car hits another non-moving car, the momentum from one car is transferred into the other car.  To determine the amount of momentum, we use a simple formula, p=mv where p is momentum, m is mass, and v is velocity.

Forces That Accelerate

     When ever there is a force placed upon something, it will accelerate.  If it accelerates, inertia will  make it keep accelerating, or more specifically, it will have it remain unchanged.

An example of this is a baseball and a bat.  When a baseball is flying through the air, it would keep going and going if it was not for the unbalanced and outside force known as gravity.  However, when it is hit by a bat, the force of the bat will cause it to accelerate.  We can find out the force that was put on the ball by a simple equation.  Fnet=ma where m=mass and a=acceleration.

Newton's First Law

     Newton's first law states that an object in motion/at rest will stay in motion/at rest unless acted upon by an outside, unbalanced force.  This means that without an outside unbalanced force, moving objects would keep moving.  It would go and go.  So what makes things stop?

     In the video above, a ball is seen rolling toward a wall.  According to Newton's first law, this ball is to stay in motion, unless an outside unbalanced force affects it.  The ball rolls toward the wall, hits it, then keeps rolling.  But at the end of the ball's travels, it stops.  This is not because I manually stopped it with my hand off screen, but simply because an outside unbalanced force.  In this particular scenario, the force is gravity and that is why it stops.