Reflection in Art

This is a picture of one of the art pieces I did this year, I etched the flower into a piece of glass and then put a red background on it and made a wooden frame, it turned out all right, but when Jungle was trying to photograph it for my art portfolio he was having a hard time because of the reflection off of the glass. If you look closely at the bottom of the picture you can see the image of jungle with a hat on and the camera up to his face. 

Reflection occurs when light from a source bounces off an object, like a mirror or a piece of glass, and travels toward your eyes. 

According to the law of reflection, the incidence ray, which is the light ray from the object (in this case Jungle) to the reflective object (the glass), and the reflected ray, from the glass to the viewer's eyes, are equal. Also, light rays are reversible.

When our brain sees the light wave that bounces off the glass, we extrapolate the image backward, so the reflected image is actually behind the glass, or so it appears in our heads. So, in this picture, Jungle's image is the same distance behind the glass as Jungle actually is in front of the glass. 

Object distance = images distance. 

This is a picture of the bells in the bell tower at UC Berkley. I visited Berkley with my family over the summer and we went up the bell tower, there was an awesome view and the bells were really cool too.

Each bell in this elaborate contraption has its own pitch and when played together music is made. When the thing inside the bell is pulled by the strings connecting to it, it hits the side of the bell, producing a vibration. The whole bell vibrates and those vibrations go off into the air, making noise!

The faster the thing hits the side of the bell, the higher the frequency of vibrations. As frequency increases, wavelength decreases. Wave speed is dependent upon the medium the sound wave are traveling through. 

When two waves meet their interaction is called the principle of superposition. The waves pass through each other, but as they meet, the briefly combine. If the crests of the waves match, the add to each other and form a super crest, same with the troughs, but if the crests are opposite then the crest of one wave the the trough of the other subtract from each other and if the waves are identical but 180 degrees out of phase then the waves will cancel each other and you will not be able to see the wave in its medium. 

Aaarrhgg ye matey! Thar be some good physics!

The Iolani water polo team went to California to play over spring break. On our one day not playing polo we went to Disneyland. This is a picture of a pirate band on the street. 

Vibrations create waves and those waves carry energy and information. When the pirates play the keys of their piano thing and violin, they are creating vibrations in the keys and strings of their instruments. The vibrations of the strings in their instruments create sound waves that move through the air. However, the sound created by these waves is much to soft to hear, unless your ear is right next to the strings, especially in the loud environment of Disneyland. So, the body of the violin and the piano thing are there to amplify the sound. The vibrations of the strings cause the bodies of the instruments to vibrate, thereby increasing the vibrating surface area that is in contact with the air, so more waves are being created and everyone can hear! Aarrgh! That be sounding like good physics to me!

Watt meter

Here is my watt-meter & me, blinded by the flash :)

Telephone Wires & Magnetic Fields

These are pictures of the view from either a tree in my backyard or my dad's workshop roof. In the picture on the bottom, on the very left side you can see a transformer box (is that what its called?) for the power lines and in the picture on the top you can a see the telephone wires running across the picture right over the plumeria trees and under the window of our neighbors house. Basically, you can see telephone wires just about anywhere you go. A telephone wire is a conducting wire, so it has current passing through it, and thus it is an electromagnet. An electromagnet refers to a conducting material that gets magnatized only when a current flows through it. So, when current passes through the telephone wires, they are magnatized and exert an magnetic field. The strength of a magnetic field from a wire is directly related to the current passing through the wire and inversely related to the distance from the center of the wire. The direction of the magnetic field lines for the magnetic field of a wire can be determined using the right hand rule #2: your thumb points in the direction of the current and your fingers curl around in the direction that the magnetic field points. The magnetic field lines are always closed loops. 

Bull Riding & Variable Resistors

Last spring break my parents and I went to Oregon to visit my brothers and go snowboarding. On one of the days we went to Mt. Hood and it turned out that is was some sort of family 'western' day and they had a mechanical bull inside the lodge that anyone could ride. So of course we got my brother Haakon to take a turn. In the right upper corner of the picture there is a guy standing at a red podium, this guy was controlling the bull. For little kids, he would make the bull go slow so it would be easier for them. He could control it by hand or just put it on a random setting that would make the bull do random movements. I realize looking back on this picture that the wiring of the controls must of had a variable resistor in order to allow the bull to move faster or slower. A variable resistor increases and decreases the length of the circuit in order to proportionately increase or decrease the the current and thus the speed. Resistance equals resistivity times length over cross sectional area, R= p(L/A). Resistance is directly proportional to resistivity and length, meaning that the larger the length the larger the resistance and vice versa. Resistance is indirectly proportional to cross sectional area. So, when the variable resistor increases the length, it is increasing the resistance and thus decreasing the current, so the bull will move slower. If the length is decreased, the resistance will decrease as well and there will be more current and the bull will move faster. 

Last spring break, my parents and I flew up to Oregon to visit my brothers who are going to school there. We snowboarded as much as possible, so we were outside a lot and it was really cold. As you can see from the picture, my brothers and I wore several layers of cloths in order to stay warm (they would be horrified with this picture because they prefer to act hard-core and wear as little as possible as a sign that they are true 'oregonians' ) Anyway, most of they layers we wear under our outer jackets are fleece and when you are trying to peel off your outer layers after getting home, an electric charge is created. Usually, the fabric of our sweaters would be neutral, however, because the weather was very cold and there was very little moisture in the air, when we peel the fabrics away from each other quickly, a charge is created. Even though they are the same fabric, one steals electrons from the other, like we saw with the tape and the saran rap in lab 21. Charge is always conserved, so if one sweater becomes positive, the other becomes equally negative. The charge that is on the sweaters is not very much and to make the sweater become neutral again you just have to touch it and your body acts as a ground, effectively removing extra charge.