My Huge Rabbit and Flowers in Garden

So today I decided to put my furry rabbit out in its play pen so that it could stretch its legs. Spending time outside with my rabbit today and looking at her fur coat, I thought about why her fur appears to be both black and white. As we learned in physics, my rabbit's fur is white because she reflects back to the viewers eye equal intensities of red, green and blue. The black sections of her fur are black due to the absence of color. Now because of physics, I understand why my rabbit appears to be black and white and why our eyes and brain interpret these mixtures of colors. Also standing in my garden I viewed the orchid plant which we had growing in our yard. This plant seems to bloom at least twice a year. The flowers appear to be red because they reflect back red light while absorbing both green and blue light.

These pictures were taken from last year when I was on the Iolani paddling team. Only now do I realize why exactly the ocean was such a blue color (actually cyan). The ocean appears to be this color because the blue wavelengths are absorbed the least by the ocean water and are therefore reflected and scattered back to the observer's eye. The many particles found in the water contribute to helping the water reflect the blue light. The ocean water is actually not blue....it only appears blue to our eyes due to the scattered blue wavelengths!

Birthday!

This past week was my mother's birthday. Therefore on the night of her birthday, my father purchased a strawberry cake for her. As we were getting ready to sing "Happy Birthday" to her and light the candles, I remembered the lesson about unpolarized and polarized light. We learned in physics that the light exhibited from the candles was unpolarized light because the electrons in the light vibrate across different and random planes. Polarized light would have the electrons reverberating through a sequential and organized pattern. Even though the human eye cannot distinguish between polarized and unpolarized light, we know this fact to be true. The candles which my mother quickly blew out were emanating unpolarized light.

Electricity Converters

While we were learning about electric converters and how they are often used in cities to step down power to the usable 120V wattage, this reminded me once again about my trip to Vietnam. Driving through the city, I was always amazed by how many wires each individual pole was able to hold up, yet I did not see many of the electrical boxes I was used to seeing sitting on the top of each pole like I do at home. This was probably because I did not know what these boxes were for or what they did. An electrical converter found at the top of the electrical pole usually steps down the energy found in wires so that it can power our appliances in the home. I do not know the Vietnamese system of electrical power, but what I do know is that, in even the developed cities which we often made our way through, their electrical poles are so inundated with individual electrical wire, that it indeed looks like an accident waiting to happen.

Magnets

Every day, I often find myself running to the fridge to gorge on food. I don't know where it all goes! As I approached my refrigerator after spending some time preparing for this weeks test, I realized that my fridge is literally plastered with magnets. The forces that magnets exert on one another are similar to electrical forces, they repel and attract each other without touching. *Like poles repel each other; opposite poles attract* My entire fridge is a huge magnet attracting other magnets! Do not bring any types of electrical devices near my fridge because all of the magnets sitting on top of it, could damage your devices!

Physics?

On the first day of school when I entered into the physics classroom, I looked around and thought to myself, "Finally! This is the last science class I will ever take at Iolani!" My whole attitude towards science has since changed. I now look forward and enjoy coming to class to learn more about "the world around me" and being able to apply it to physics. The class seems to come much easier to me than in any of the other science classes taught here at Iolani because rather than focusing heavily on the math aspect of physics, we look more toward the concept. My goal for the next quarter in physics would be to possibly improve my quiz grade and also bring up my project grades, as they both tended to bring my grade average down. If I were evaluate my effort and the amount of time which I put into my physics work, I would probably grade myself on a 9/10 scale because while I do put out a good amount of work, by giving just that little extra of energy, there are still some improvements which can be made.


"Very ¿ NICE ? I LIKE!"

Dirty Laundry!

I have been having to do my own laundry for the past several years. Opening up the dryer to throw my clothes in....I remembered how static electricity takes place inside of a normal dryer. Static electricity is caused by friction in which two different objects come in contact/rub with eachother, creating somewhat of a "charge." Static electricity is much more prevalent and can be created easier in dryer places. Therefore a clothes dryer is an ideal place for static electricity to occur, due to the dryness of the area as well as the friction created with the tumbling of clothes. When pulling the clothes out from the dryer, you may sometimes feel a charge on your skin which causes the hair to rise, this is because the clothes are now CHARGED!

Ski Lift = Capacitor

When Mr. Kohara was first explaining what a capacitor was and related it to a ski lift, at first I did not see the relation. After looking over some pictures from my past ski trip, I finally made the correlation. A ski lift is just like a capacitor in the fact that when the skiier goes up the mountain on the lift, it is just like a battery recharging the capacitor and when the skiier gets off the lift and races down the mountain (with its gained charge), it is just like the capacitor releasing all its charge at once. These pictures were taken on my ski trip to Big White last spring break. Now I can finally relate to how/why a ski lift is just like a capacitor. The skiier gains charge going up the mountain; releases all that gained charge when quickly coming down...

Bow Waves

This past weekend I was looking through some of the photos I have on my computer and came across these from this past summer. When I took these pictures, I just took the pictures of the ducks because I thought that they were cute. Now with what I know about waves, I am able to describe why there are waves behind the ducks when they swim, how they form and why they appear the way they do.

As shown by the pattern of these swimmings ducks, the pattern of waves they leave behind them is that of a bow wave. In order for a bow wave to be created, the ducks need to swim at a faster speed than the waves they produce when swimming through the water. The waves the ducks in these pictures create is a two dimensional wave that overlaps at the edges and creates a pattern of waves similar to that of a V-shape. Science is everywhere!

Watch That Flag Move!

Earlier this summer I traveled to Vietnam along with a group of about sixteen fellow Iolani classmates. There we visited many important museums and were able to witness what it was like to live in Vietnam. In Vietnam, I took a great deal of pictures.

These pictures of the Vietnamese flag exhibits the idea of transverse waves as a flag moves in the breeze. The motion of the pulse of the wave creates a series of right angles in the direction of the wave speed, however, the flags motion moves in a transverse direction of the wave. These waves produce a disturbance that repeats regularly in space and time and is transmitted progressively from one place to another with no transport of matter, it is thus, a transport only of energy.

This little Vietnamese boy didn't know he was playing with physics when he was getting ready to fly his Batman kite!

All waves can only be produced if there are vibrations, creating pulses through a medium which the energy is transfered through.