Still trying to save mother earth

I have found that incandescent lights give off heat as well as light energy. The higher the wattage of the light bulb the higher the temperature. A compact fluorescent bulb gives off very little heat energy because they do not use resistance and cause a light to glow hot. 

In a home or office, lots of incandescent lights means that the air conditioner would have to use more energy during the summer to remove the extra heat given off by lights. Also, some lights such as torchieres, can be very dangerous as the bulbs are rated at 300 watts or more and get VERY hot. They can catch drapes or other materials on fire if you're not careful.

Pound the Sounds

A sonic boom is a loud explosive noise caused by the shock wave from an aircraft traveling faster than the speed of sound. If you toss a pebble in a pond, little waves will form inconcentric circles and propagate away from the point of impact. If the plane is traveling slower than the speed of sound then sound waves can propagate ahead of the plane. If the plane breaks the sound barrier and flies faster than the speed of sound, it produces a sonic boom when it flies past. The boom is the "wake" of the plane's sound waves. All of the sound waves that would have normally propagated ahead of the plane are combined together so at first you hear nothing, and then you hear the boom they create. Its actually kind of scary. 

Motion of the Ocean

We see the beach everyday but do we really know much about the ocean were so comfortable to swim in? In beach waves the wind blows, pressure and friction cause a disturbance to the balance of the waters surface. It is through these forces that energy gets transferred from the air to the water and creates a wave. The size of the waves depend on how fast the wind is blowing, how long the wind blows for and the distance of over the water that the wind blows. Waves break when the water becomes shallow, the most familiar break to us is the shore break. As the wave is coming into shore the reef or ground begins to slow the wave down, causing the bottom of the wave to slow down and the top to continue moving creating a barrel affect as the wave breaks on the shore.

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The principle of superposition may be applied to waves whenever two (or more) waves travelling through the same medium at the same time. The waves pass through each other without being disturbed. The net displacement of the medium at any point in space or time, is simply the sum of the individual wave displacements. A travelling wave whose amplitude depends on the phase (ϕ). When the two waves are in-phase, they interfere constructively and the result has twice the amplitude of the individual waves. When the two waves have opposite-phase, they interfere destructively and cancel each other out. The waves in this picture are mostly flat so it must be destructive.

Going with the flow

Waves are probably one of my favorite things. Pretty waves in art, sound waves that bump rap, light waves that let me watch my movie marathons, and even waves in the beautiful ocean. They are all around us. In physics, a wave is disturbance or oscillation that travels through matter/space, accompanied by a transfer of energy. Wave motion transfers energy from one point to another. My favorite type of waves are sound. Sound is a mechanical wave that is created by a vibrating object, which is probably why you see speakers vibrating. For a sound wave traveling through air, the vibrations of the particles are best described as longitudinal. Longitudinal waves are waves in which the motion of the individual particles of the medium is in a direction that is parallel to the direction of energy transport. 

Multimeters

They sound kind of boring but are actually an important use in real life. Well its important if you're an electrician and actually know how to use it or care to learn to use it. Mechanics also use these to check the electrical of cars and other motorized vehicles. We use the multimeter to measure the "voltage across" and the "current through" something. When measuring current you must break the circuit and insert the two probes in the hole to complete the circuit again.  Some real life situations that a multimeter can be used for are things such as to check for a broken wire or bad plug connection in an extension cord or in any outlet of the house. If it isn't working you can use the multimeter to see what wire is a defect and what the problem is. 

Save Mother Earth

Recently in Physics class we discussed the topic of electricity and energy. In doing so, some assignments included calculating the resistance, voltage, and current in everyday items found in our household. I was able to observe that a lot of the larger devices or devices which created a lot of heat created the most electrical current. It was brought to our classes attention that the amount of electrical current, or killowatts, that each item uses somewhat determined how much money our parents spent on their electric bills.

The electric company used on Kauai is Kauai Island Utility Cooperative. 91% of their electric is from petroleum that is shipped to the islands with only 0.2% from solar energy. Hawaii is actually the highest electricity rate in the United States. With a growing rate of 25.13 cents per kWh, it becomes very critical that we try to save as much energy as possible.

It is encouraged greatly to switch all your light bulbs to fluorescent light bulbs but how much does it really save you? Does changing it make a big difference? These are questions I asked myself as I created this experiment.  The control will be the lamp. The independent variable is the watts/type of light bulb. The dependent variable is the thermometer or heat projected off the light bulbs. I will be measuring how much energy each light bulb uses by measuring the temperatures that each light bulb emits. Since it takes more energy to make things hot I can measure how much more heat one light bulb has to another light bulb. I will be doing 2 trials with 2 different types of lamps and measure it by recording the temperatures for each light bulb.

Lets get SERIEouS

Circuits (not circus) are important in keeping us happy. A blown circuit or circuit not put together correctly could result in problems with your tv or satellite connection and possibly a broken remote of some sort. To avoid these problems its good to know the basics of circuits and the two types to observe. A series circuit is a circuit in which resistors are arranged in a chain, so the current has only one path to take. The current is the same through each resistor. The total resistance and voltage of the circuit is found by simply adding the individual amounts. In comparison a parallel circuit is a circuit in which the resistors are arranged with their heads connected together, and their tails connected together. The current in a parallel circuit breaks up, with more than one current flow. The current flows in places where there is least resistance. The voltage across each resistor in parallel is the same. 

Ohmmm....Ω

We use power in everything we do these days and rely heavily on it for simple daily tasks. For example when you wake up from your ALARM in the morning you turn on your LIGHTS and head to the kitchen and open up your REFRIGERATOR and use your TOASTER to make food. As we need electricity in many of our activities many people dont know the dynamics of electricity.  A predominately used equation in physics is the Ohm's law equation which is V=I x R. In words, the electric potential difference between two points on a circuit (V) is equivalent to the product of the current between those two points (I) and the total resistance of all electrical devices present between those two points (R). So you can calculate the voltage required for many of these electrical devices if you really cared that much. 

Its electriccccc

I would say that electricity is a state or feeling of thrilling excitement, however i don't feel that definition is appropriate for science. Electricity is actually  the flow of electrical power or charge. Electricity is made from from primary sources such as coal and solar energy.Electricity is important because it is a fundamental feature of all matter and we use electricity in everything these days. I would say we need electricity to survive in this day and age. Electric current occurs when an atom becomes charged. Current measures the rate at which electrical charge moves past a point in a circuit. Resistance is the obstruction of electron flow. Resistance is measured in the unit of ohms. Ohm's Law shows the relationship between resistance, current and voltage

kəˈpasitər

A lot of times in Science there are important vocabulary that I never really know how to pronounce or understand what it could mean. One of those words are Capacitor, or a device used to store an electric charge, consisting of one or more pairs of conductors separated by an insulator. So what really does this mean? In a way, a capacitor is a little like a battery. Although they work in completely different ways, capacitors and batteries both store electrical energy. You can easily make a capacitor from two pieces of aluminum foil and a piece of paper. It won't be a particularly good capacitor in terms of its storage capacity, but it will work. Capacitors can be found in my new iPhone 5s, because the capacitors help to translate the sound waves in which we speak into sounds for our ears. Thats a pretty important component if you ask me!

Its electric!

Electrostatics is the topic of choice this week in physics class.  Charges will normally discharge if touched by a conductor. The human body is considered to be neutral that is why we may be shocked. You get shocked because you may have touched something or rubbed your feet on the ground causing you to be more positive so when you touch somebody else you feel a shock because you are trying to get balanced out with the other person. Places that are extremely dry makes it easier to get shocked unlike being in Hawaii where there is high humidity. 

Eat to stay alive

I cant be the only who loves food? I got to have a lovely meal this weekend at dukes restaurant. It was decadent and quite filling to my surprise. So what does food have to do with physics? This week we are talking about energy. Food essentially gives all of us energy. If you don't know what its called it's calories, which are tiny people who sew our clothes tighter every night. But really calories is a measure of how much "energy" we are intaking. If you wanted to convert your calories into energy measurements, 1 calorie is equal to about 4.1855 joules.