collisions
drorzel | July 15, 2010In the comments following the silly accelerator poll, onymous wrote:
[T]he point of the LHC isn't to discover the Higgs. No one in their right minds would build a 14 TeV pp collider if their only goal was to discover the Higgs.
While it's true that the ultimate goal of the LHC is to discover more exotic particles that may or may not exist (blah, blah, supersymmetry, blah) most of the hype has focussed on the Higgs, which is the one thing they're pretty sure they'll find (comments later in that thread notwithstanding). This is one of the potential problems with the way the machine has been…
rallain | June 10, 2010In the last episode of MythBusters, they wanted to see if a tornado could make some glass cut off a person's head. The first attempt was just to take some glass and through it at a simulated human neck. Clearly, this wasn't quite the same as a tornado.
So, here was their plan. If they want to simulate glass moving at 300 mph, they could get a bigger piece of glass and put it on a truck moving at 80 mph. The result would give a piece of glass with the same kinetic energy as a smaller piece moving at 300 mph. Their calculations look to be correct. However, the question is: would this make…
rallain | May 6, 2010I already mentioned the MythBusters' crashing two cars episode where they correctly doubled the speed of a pendulum type object. Overall, this was a very visual (although expensive) demo. There was one part that left a sour taste in my mouth - the final explanation from the narrator. First, they showed this.
And then they had an explanation that went something very similar to to this (after restating what the sign above said)
"Although the two-car crash doubles the speed, the energy the crash is transferred to twice the mass resulting in a crash that looks like just one car hitting a wall…
rallain | February 4, 2010Suppose you want to move an empty paper clip box by shooting it with a toy dart gun. Why would you want to do this? Don't worry about that - this is my example and I am sticking with it. Should you shoot a dart that sticks to the box or should you shoot one that bounces off? I made a video of this exact situation. Note: you could obviously come up with other objects to do this with, but I always like to use more normal stuff.
In case it wasn't clear, the first dart bounced back and made the box go much faster (and farther) than the dart that stuck (inside) the box. The usual question is…
rallain | December 18, 2009Fight Science is an entertaining show. Great graphics. The basic idea is to look at the science in different fighting styles. They had a clip-style commercial on it during a MythBusters episode I was watching. And from that, I can say that the kicking looked cool, but the science needs some work.
The Setup
The basic idea is that they wanted to compare kicks from different fighting styles. From what I can gather, they collected data by having some dudes kick this "kicking bag". During the kick, they measured the force exerted on the bag and they had a sensor on the kicker's leg - I…
rallain | December 10, 2009Have I not made it clear how much I like the MythBusters? Also, I am totally aware that they are not (nor do they claim to be) scientists. Really, this is what makes their show appealing (maybe?). So here is the problem now. And, it is not just the MythBusters - I see other shows making the same mistake.
If two things are colliding, how do you characterize the collision? No one really gets this right. For this particular episode, the MythBusters were looking at the collision between a bullet and gun. They wanted to see how hard it would be to shoot a gun out of someone's hand. The…
rallain | April 10, 2009I am so pumped up that MythBusters is back on. Not only do I like the show, but it offers so many blogging opportunities. Their latest show featured car crashing myths. One of the myths from the episode was a redo of the myth where two trucks crash head on simultaneously crushing a smaller car in the middle.
The first test was very similar to the previous time they tested this, but faster. They towed two 18 wheelers to crash together around 50 mph and smash a stationary car. The results were impressive. However, they did not have the result of the car completely contained in the…
rallain | February 26, 2009First, I think we should all be using smaller lighter cars. They get better gas mileage, they are better for the environment and maybe even reduce traffic? (ok, not sure about that last one - but it is possible). In Buzz Out Loud 918, they were discussing Toyota working on new car bodies built from sea-weed based plastics (from a wired article). One point that was brought is the comparison between old plastic bodies (the pontiac fiero comes to my mind) and these new plastics that should be much stronger. Well, here is the problem. Light strong bodied cars can be dangerous. Really? Yes…
rallain | February 3, 2009People say I am picky. Ok, sometimes I am. But somebody has to stand up for what is right and just. Maybe I am that person.
Please stop using the word force if you don't know what it is.
There. I said it. You can attack me now.
It wasn't just one thing that got me fired up. It was two things. First, I read this article on physics and football (Physics of 'The Hit' from the NY Times). If it was just this article, I would have let it go and moved on. But no. One of my kids just happened to be watching MythBusters (We all love MythBusters) and there was a discussion that used the term…
rallain | December 12, 2008Pre Reqs: momentum principle, forces,energy, vectors
Really, there is not much new here. This is an introduction to objects that interact. To describe this, I will need to pull several different ideas together (that you have probably already looked at). Let me start with a simple case. Suppose I have two objects, maybe they are two asteroids in space. I will call them asteroid A and B:
In this situation, the two objects have different momentums but one interaction between them. Notice that the gravitational force on asteroid A is the same magnitude but opposite direction as the force…