WEIGHT AND MASS

Weight is force resulting from the influence of acceleration due to gravitational pull.

Its formula, W=m x g,
is similar with that of force, F=m x a;
but what you should note is that acceleration was replaced by a constant or uniform acceleration, g which is equal to 9.81m/s2. 

Hence, the SI unit of weight is the Newtons, N.
But mass is a constant as long as classical physics is concerned. Its a measure of the stuff contained in a matter. The SI unit is in kilograms, kg.
hence the weight of a substance is constant at a place but varies with change in gravitational pull.

This means that a man in a moon will weigh less than someone on earth.

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IMPORTANCE OF AERODYNAMICS

As long as two surfaces move relatively to each other, friction can't be avoided. And the verse effects of friction are quite obvious. Hence aerodynamics studies the movement of bodies in space (air) or the way air moves over the surface of bodies in order to reduce friction by accurate and stylish streamlining.

Not just that, aerodynamics engineers do also take advantage of the air moving over the surface of a body to keep fast moving bodies on the ground as seen in sports cars (e. g. check the design of the enzo Ferrari and read about spoilers). On the other way round, it can also apply this advantage in lifting a body from the ground.

In Turbines, aerodynamics is applied to perfectly direct air flow into the compressor; this is also seen in the car radiator positioning and design.
All these must be done with precision and fashion to suite a good design condition.

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PHYSICS AND THE BUGATTI VEYRON

The Mid-engine design (i.e. keeping the car engine in the middle region of the car) of the Bugatti Veyron (World's Fastest Car) provides it with stability by putting the center of gravity in the middle and also at a low height.

This is one of the reasons why the car can easily turn at high speeds without flying off the road due to the balanced mass of the car. IT ALL STARTED WITH PHYSICS...

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THE PERSISTENCE OF VISION

Did you know that the retina of the eyes retains the image formed on it for about 0.04seconds? This phenomenon is known as THE PERSISTENCE OF VISION.

This explains why you see the rays of a fast moving object, it also explains why organised moving pictures of a similar object tends to appear like an animation as seen in cartoons and so many other things. That's Physics. 

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HINT IN IMAGE MAKING

The camera works by allowing reflected or produced (for self illuminated bodies) lights rays from a body to pass through its lens and cast an image of itself on a screen behind the lens.

For the fish in the image above, the lights rays from it is the one reflected from another light source, e.g. the sun.

Hence, for all those who love photography and video covering, try not to face the camera lens to the light source - You will get a poor image.To get a the best quality image, the camera lens should be in the same direction with the light rays from the source. And the captured body should obstruct the light source in front of the camera lens. This will make the body to reflect as much light as possible into the camera lens, producing a more detailed picture of the body.
This is the principle used in studio photography to give you those excellent high quality photos.

It's Physics in play all the way.
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ACOUSTICS: THE SINGING TREE

The Singing Ringing Tree is a wind powered sound sculpture resembling a tree set in the landscape of the Pennine hill range overlooking Burnley, in Lancashire, England.(Wikipedia, 2013)

The hollow pipes are arranged in such a way that incoming wind enters them a produce sounds.

This is a good application of acoustics in physics!

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CLASS 2: PICTURE EXPOSURE AND THE HUMAN EYES

Have you taken a picture before and it turns out so bright that you can't see a thing? Or in other cases, it appears dim? It is due to poor exposure of the lens or film to light rays.

The lens of a camera is the central part that opens for light from an object to come through.
That stuff the (Analogue) camera men wind when snapping is not just focusing; he also controls exposure too. However, digital cameras has automatic exposure control.

The radius of the lens opened during a shot and how long the lens was opened, influences the quality of the picture produced.

-Dark Scene Imaging
Now for taking pictures of dark scenes, the lens needs to open wide and stay opened for a long time to allow much light rays from the object, to come into the 'dark image room' in the camera.

-Sports Image Scenes
For sports and fast motion imaging, the aperture, opens and closes at an incredible fast rate, this makes the picture free from motion blurs but they usually come in with low quality.
eg. Biking, running, jumping pics, etc

-Bright Scene Imaging
In bright scenes, the exposure time is low and the radius of opening is very small too inorder to allow a controlled quantity of light come in.

DID YOU KNOW?
All these cases of imaging occurs in the human eyes; infact, they are modelled from the way the human eyes react to light rays.
In the dark, your eye lens opens up automatically to enable you form images in the dark.

The above situation is the explanation for the pains your eyes gives you when you come out from a dark room into a bright environment- yes, the exposure is reducing as your eye muscles contract swiftly.

This is physics in you!

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TOP TEN WEIRDEST PHYSICS FACTS

1.If the Sun were made of bananas, it would be just as hot as it is now.

2.All the matter that makes up the human race could fit in a sugar cube.

3.Events in the future can affect what happened in the past.

4.Almost all of the Universe is missing.

5.Things can travel faster than light; and light doesn't always travel very fast.

6.There are an infinite number of Mes writing this, and an infinite number of YOUs reading it.

7.Black holes aren't black.

8.The fundamental description of the universe does not account for a past, present or future.

9.A particle here can affect one on the other side of the universe, instantaneously.

10.The faster you move, the heavier you get.

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Thanks for reading!
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CLASS 1: COLLIDERS

CERN Large Hadron Colliders, Geneva, Switzerland

PHYSICS CLASSROOM
TOPIC: COLLIDERS
Today, we'll learn of something very new to most of us; colliders. And we will try to be as brief and clear as we can.

Colliders are machines or laboratories used to study elementary particles(eg. Quarks) and sub atomic particles. Experiments relating to atomic particles(electrons, protons, etc) are carried out using colliders.

How do colliders work?
Colliders works by using accelerators to increase the speed of particles to high values of velocty(close to the speed of light), and making them collide against each other. The reactions that takes place after the collision are then studied and analysed, thanks to the experts. The result of the analysis tells us the nature of the elementary particles that existed during the collision since these particles cannot exist independently.

The collision may be between two particles, such that,
i)both are accelerated and moving towards each other, or
ii)one is kept stationary and the other is accelerated.

So many of you may ask, what is an accelerator?
Here is the answer.
Accelerators are used to speed up the movement of particles by taking advantage of the way the particle reacts to electrical and magnetic fields. Accelerators like this, uses electromagnetic fields to attract and direct the beams of particles in a vacuum. The open-end Anode and the X and Y plates in the cathode ray tube of your television is an example of this form of accelerators.

Another form of acceleration technology, uses oscillation. But this is not as efficient as the electromagnetic accelerators.

Superconductors and Large Accelerators.
Acceleration by electromagnetism in large practical cases, requires the use of special conductors known as super conductors. Superconductors conducts electricity with zero resistance, but the ones in operation now, works at close to zero temperatures. They are needed to build electromagnets which will not develop heat and at thesame time, generate the needed amount of high magnetic fields with the available current it can get.

An example of a collider, is the large hadron collider which was used to discover the god particle- higgs boson.
(More facts on that later)

Hope you all enjoyed the class? Any questions?

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FLUIDS AND PRESSURE

PRESSURE IN FLUIDS

Pressure is defined as force per unit area. It is usually more convenient to use pressure rather than force to describe the influences upon fluid behavior. The standard unit for pressure is the Pascal, which is a Newton per square meter.

Pressure in a fluid may be considered to be a measure of energy per unit volume or energy density. For a force exerted on a fluid, this can be seen from the definition of pressure.


FLUID POTENTIAL ENERGY

The potential energy of a moving fluid is more useful in applications like the Bernoulli  equation when is expressed as potential energy per unit volume
The energy density of a fluid can be expressed in terms of this potential energy density along with kinetic energy density and fluid pressure.

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GET UPDATED: E=mc2 isn't complete!

I never believed this till i watched this video, you should try it.
Click to watch the Video

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BANKING OF TRACKS

A Banked Racing Track

Racing tracks are constructed to slope inwards, this is called BANKING. The reason for this is to have a force component acting towards the center of the race track due to the weight of the car. This will prevent the car from skidding off the track when turning on high speed.
The concept about this related to the idea of centrifugal and Centripetal forces which are both opposite and equal for a body under rotary motion.

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FLICKER FUSION FREQUENCY

The Light Rays you see in these images occurred due to the fact that the flicker fusion frequency of the observer has been exceeded.

Flicker fusion frequency can be defined as that frequency of a flicker (of light) which is higher than the frequency of perception of vision of an observer(e.g. Human, fly, camera)
It is that critical interval at which a flicker of light will appear to FUSE into one continuous ray of light.

ILLUSTRATION
In patterns/signs formed by arranging small led bulbs in a given shape and programming them to turn on sequentially from one end to the other (e.g. In led bill boards or commonly seen in filling stations- WELCOME TO OUR FILLING STATION). This creates an illusion to the observer, making him think the lights/letters are actually moving. If you increase the speed at which each light comes up, your eyes will deceive you into thinking you're seeing rays. This is because the frequency has exceeded the FLICKER-FUSION FREQUENCY of your eyes.(i.e. the lights are moving faster than your eyes can process it due to a phenomenon known as THE PERSISTENCE OF VISION)

Now for flies, their persistence of vision, last longer than humans; this results into a flicker-fusion frequency that is much higher than ours, hence, even when we wave our hands to kill them- they will see our hand motion as slow moving rays, then they take off.

This also explains why High Speed/High Definition Cameras are needed to video car races to avoid blurred videos.

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INCREDIBLE PHYSICS: THE BUGATTI VEYRON

The Spoiler of the Bugatti Veyron bends to this position during braking to resist air flow.

The Bugatti Veyron is the world fastest production car (hitting a top speed of 254mph - the speed of a jet at take off), and funny enough, it has the ability to STOP COMPLETELY from this speed in less than 10s, woww!
That's faster than any other car you can think of.

Now how is this possible? Bugatti Veyron, has a combination of two different braking systems:
1.The normal wheel friction braking system you see in normal cars, and
2.The air resistance wing braking system(see the picture)

The air resistance wing braking system is the work of aerodynamics. The car is designed with a wing in the back which acts like the spoiler[ read more on spoilers here] in normal cars and opens automatically in the position shown in the picture to resist the flow of air while braking. This air resistance, generates a high retardation for the car which is about 70% of braking in normal sports cars.

This is an excellent idea, and it wont be possible without physics!
I LOVE PHYSICS.

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AERODYNAMICS

Pagani Huayra in Wind tunnel

No matter how complex the technology might get, they are governed by simple Physics principles...
We call this streamlining, and its one central focus in the design of the Pagani Huayra named after the Andean god of wind.

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PROVE OF E=mc2

Many of us have been using this formula without even knowing the source and principles behind it, try watching this video to really know how it came about.

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WALKING UP A HILL

Walking Up Hill

When you walk up a Hill or a slope, its more slower, even when you apply much effort. Do you know why? Read this.

When you move a distance by walking, you do work; infact, work=forceXdistance cover in the direction of the force.
Now when you go up a hill, you do the works of:
1. Moving a linear distance forward, and
2.Increasing your altitude, upward.

Physics explains it all.

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EARTH YEARS

Did you know?
The earth year can be measured in several ways,

1.Tropical Year(365.242 days):
Gotten from the measurement of the time taken for the earth to round the sun and come back to its former inclination to the sun.

2.Sidereal Year(365.256 days):
Time taken for earth to cross the star rising behind our sun.(Refer to the image below)

3. Anomalistic Year(365.260 days):
Time it takes the earth to make its closest approach to the sun on its elliptical axis.

So far, the most popular is the tropical year which determines weather and climate.

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THE PHYSICS OF SKYDIVING

Skydivers

This is what happens at each stage of skydiving
1.On leaving the plane,
the person starts accelerating on his own weight.
-Force: Downward(the person's weight)
-Acceleration: 9.8m/s2(gravitation)
-Velocity: 0m/s

2....with time
The person accelerates downward on gravity. He will be resisted by air molecules(this is called a Drag); and this occurs till the drag is equal the person's weight. The person eventually stops accelerating and starts travelling at a uniform velocity.
-Force: Downward=Upward(the divers weight) i.e. no resultant forces again
F=0N
-Acceleration:0m/s2 (since a=f/m, f=0)
Velocity: >>0m/s and Constant. This is the highest velocity this diver can travel, and it is known as TERMINAL VELOCITY.

3.Opening the parachute
This increase the drag force on the diver, hence he starts deccelerating.
-Force: Downward<Upward
-Acceleration: negative
-Velocity: Reducing

4...with time
the body deccelerates to a new terminal velocity. The drag reduces again to equal the weight.
-Force:Downward=Upward
-Acceleration:0m/s
-Velocity:Reduced but >0m/s

This new velocity makes it safe for him to land.


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