Blog Post #20

Hey guys, its me again talking to you about my majestic daily life, physics edition.  So we have been learning a lot about circuits and electricity these past weeks.  Today I'm going to be talking to you about circuits.  If you look at the picture, you will see my bathroom lights.  Please ignore the fact that one light bulb is out, it's because it is fused out.  Anyways, if you did not know already there are two different types of circuits, series and parallel (and combo but that is just a mixture of both).  If you don't know what they are it's just that series are connected in one line, while a parallel is connected by many different connecting paths.  My bathroom lights are set up in a parallel circuit because in a series, the broken light bulb would have killed the circuit and all of the bulbs would have stopped working.  But in this case, only one bulb stopped working, therefore, it must be in a parallel circuit.  Thats pretty much it.  I hope you learned just a little bit about circuits.  Anyways, I have to go change that light bulb now.  See you next week.  I think we might be doing our water bottle rockets this week.  But I'm not sure.  So don't count on it! Okay bye.

Blog Post #20

Hey guys, so today I'm here to talk to you about ways on saving energy.  My physics teacher gave us a challenge in class to create ways to save electricity in our house.  And whatever money we save, we get to pocket the difference.  Unfortunately, I'm moving next month and my dad is putting in photovoltaic cells for our house.  Therefore, I'm already excluded from the challenge.  But I am able to give ways on how to save energy in my house anyways.  So these are pics of my current house to show you ways on saving energy.  One thing you can do is turn off your air conditioning.  Open a window.  It uses a buttload of energy.  Also you probably heard of this before but turn off lights when you aren't using it.  That will save a great deal of energy over time.  Also, some appliances like chargers or other plug-in devices have a plug known as phantom power.  If you guys don't know what that is, it's just a term used for saying that some plugs do use electricity even when not in use.  So the easiest way to save electricity is to unplug plugs!  Anyways, I hope I taught you some things on saving electricity in your house. So see you guys next week.

Blog Post #19

Hey guys, it's me with another blog post.  Today I'm going to talk to you about currents.  Currents are the number of charges passing a point per second.  There are two types of currents, there are DC and AC.  They are called DC circuits and AC circuits.  DC circuits are direct currents which charges flow one way.  And AC circuits which charges flow both ways.  The television I have on my picture has a DC circuit because the charges from the plug go directly to the television.  But in the matters of an AC circuit, that can be demonstrated through your cellphone charger.  When the charger is hooked to the wall, charges from the wall, through the plug, which converts the charges from AC to DC then into your phone.  I hope that helps a little, yeah it got kind of confusing for me as well.

Blog Post #18

Hey guys!  Its me with another post.  This week I'm going to talk to you about capacitors.  Capacitance is basically energy storage for a short amount of time.  Capacitors are just that, but tangible.  Almost everything we use (technology wise) has capacitors.  In my example, the computer keyboard has capacitors.  These capacitors are located inside the keys of the keyboard.  You see, when a key is pressed, two plates are pushed together, which was originally divided by a dielectric.  Anyways, when a specific key is pressed, the plates are pressed together and it sends off an energy signal that tells the computer to type that specific key.  Then when the key retracts, it stops pressing the key.  Ironically, I'm doing it right now...  Anyways, I hope you learned something today.  Sorry if this kind of confused you a little bit.  Trust me, it's not easy talking about this.  Anyways, join me next week when I will be talking to you about something different!

Blog Post #17

Hey guys, this week I'm here to talk to you about electrical potential.  Don't get it mixed up with electrical potential energy.  They are not the same.  Electrical potential or electrical potential difference is the amount of electrical potential energy per charge.  This is measured in joules/coulombs (J/C).  This is also know as a volt or voltage.  If you look super closely to the poorly taken photo, you can see that this C battery has 1.5 volts.  This battery is used to power my radio/speakers.  What I learned in physics last class was that because my radio needs eight C batteries and each battery has 1.5 volts, we could replace this with a larger battery that has the same amount of volts.  Why would I do this?  I would do this because of the fact that the battery has a larger volume, it would have more electrical potential energy.  Meaning this would make it last longer and save me more money.  Unfortunately, I would have to manually rewire the radio to make the battery fit and even then, the battery will be very bulky and hard to carry around.  But it doesn't matter, I probably won't do that anyways.  Anyways, I hope you learned something.  And join me next week when I'll be teaching you about hopefully something new.

Blog Post #16

Hey so its been another week of school.  I was tired, so I took a bath.  I dragged my sock-covered feet across the bathroom rug and I walked to the door.  But then something hit me.  Or shocked me for that matter.  Do you know what that is?  Of course you don't.  You see my body was neutrally charged (refer to last post for definitions).  And so was the door.  However, when I dragged my feet across the carpet, it created a charge.  Either positive or negative.  Anyways, when a charged object and a neutral object meet, their charges want to equal out.  This means that if an object has +3 charge and another object had a -5 charge, their ions want to distribute so when they meet the charge for both of them would be -1 for each.  In this case, when I touched the neutral door with my charged up body, it created a shock, trying to equal out.  I believe that this is right.  But it's been a long break for me.  So go easy on me.  Anyways, no school tomorrow.  Enjoy your holiday and please study physics.  Oh for anyone in my grade who is reading this is going to AP physics C next year let me know!

Blog Post #15

HAPPY NEW YEARS!!! I wanted to say that I am so happy to have lived through another year! Anyways, today I'm going to talk to you guys about charges.  No, not monthly phone charges.  I'm talking about magnetic charges.  There are three different types of atoms, the first is called protons, those are positively charged.  The second one is called electrons, those are negatively charged.  And finally, we have neutrons, which have no charge or neutral.  The picture on the left is of one of my refrigerator magnets holding my baby cousins Christmas picture from 2010.  I think what I'm about to say is right.  But I could be wrong.  But this is to my understanding and plus we just started this unit so I might mess up.  Anyways, I know, that if I am correct, the magnet should have a specific charge.  And the refrigerator should have a neutral charge.  This is because when the magnet and the refrigerator come in contact, they stick together or attract.  I can almost guarantee that the refrigerator is neutral though.  One time, I got any actual magnet (one with a positive and negative side) and stuck both sides on the refrigerator.  Both of the sides were attracted together.  It says that both negative and positive charges are attracted to neutral charges.  Therefore, it should be neutral.  But I'm not completely sure if thats true or not.  Anyways I sure hope that this helped a little.  And sorry if this confused you even more.  But it makes sense to me.  Anyways happy new year again.