9/22 Scheitlin

As we were arriving at class we were told to turn in our graph scavenger hunt and our lab page from yesterday if we did not turn it in already. Then we got our kinematics #2 homework out on our desk so Coats-Haan could check for completion and give us the answer key to check our work. Next we received a two question worksheet in which we were asked to just answer one aloud as a class. Afterwards, Coats-Haan told us a joke, saying that 3 people are asked to consult on a farm that has cows producing less milk than they want them to. The psychologist says the cows are not happy in their environment, the engineer writes many mathematical equations(that no one understands), and the physicist says let's see the cow as a sphere(in case you don't realize that was the punch-line). No one really understood what it meant so you are not alone, actually we were almost all kind of starring blankly back at her. We are hoping to understand this joke within the next few years of our life. Next up were notes on kinematics or the study of motion without consideration of mass and force. A few bullet points were trajectory- the name of a particle's path, we can use the cartesian coordinates to describe the path, and it is usually denoted as s(t). Speed- the path length divided by the corresponding change in time, calculated by v= delta s /delta t, it is a scalar quantity. Average speed- average of many different speeds over a path length when an object is in uniform motion. Instantaneous speed- the speed at any given moment, defined as the slope of tan to s(t) at any given t, V= ds/dt. We also learned a few things about planes, yaw- when it turns left or right, roll- when it rolls over on its side, pitch- when it points up or down. All of these are controlled by the rudder, elevators and ailerons. Then we did a few of the problems on the example sheet we got around the first day we started learning about kinematics. Oh, and we also found out that Coats-Haan really does not like not knowing what slide is about to come up or what slide we are on, as she doesn't know in second period because it is her first honors physics class of the day. After notes, we were given a pair check, but only had to do the first three, the answers on the board were 4.7 hours for number 1, 105.2 min for number 2, and 1.6 km for number three. The pair check was not turned in. Homework for the night, due tomorrow, is page 52 numbers 1-6 of our textbook.

Question of the Day- Why does the physicist want to assume the cow is a sphere?

Answer: Well I am not quite sure why, but I am guessing because the cow looks like a sphere, and he wants to simplify the problem down to something easier to handle and more familiar to him, and since a cow has many limbs and parts, he assumes it is a sphere to help make solving a problem easier because he is more capable to work with a sphere than a cow.