The Ball Pushes Me Back?

Ok well I have been playing basketball for quite some time now and not once have I ever thought the ball was pushing me back with the same force that I was pushing it at. Seriously, this concept is super strange. Newton's Third Law of Motion states that when one objects applies a force on a second object, the second object applies an equal and opposite force on the first object. Well I can see how this law works with guns with its recoil but a basketball pushing me back is kind of far-fetched. My skeptisism is easily answered with the concept of action and reaction forces relative to mass. Since the mass of the ball compared to my body mass is so small my body will not accelerate backwards as fast as the ball will accelerate foward. So basically even though the ball is pushing back at me with the same force that I pushed it at, my mass being much greater, my acceleration goes unnoticed, while the acceleration of the ball is noticable as it cleanly swishes through the basket for the game winning shot.

Bartenders, Drinks, and Inertia

Ah back to writing journals again. A new semester, a new journey to embark on and learn how this world really works. It's like a new season of your favorite show. Now down to business.
The other night I was performing music at a restaurant/bar. You know the music was awesome with me singing and playing some crazy guitar licks and the drummer laying down some sick hip-hop and rock beats. During one of the breaks we were thirsty, so we go over to the bar to get some drinks. We are underage so we order water and orange juice, of course. The bartender sends my orange juice flying at me across the bar and I stop it with my hand. At this point in the year my brain is set to notice anything physics the instant it happens. This hurts my brain sometimes because everything that is going on is always physics. But anyway...my brain tuned into the property of inertia and the forces that act upon objects to keep them in or out of equilibrium. First off the pitcher of orange juice that was flying at me needed a force to act upon it in order to move from its state of rest. The bartenders thrust took care of that. When the pitcher was moving, according to the property of inertia, it would keep going until a forced acted upon it to stop it. In this case it was mostly my hand and some friction that stopped the pitcher. There were also other forces like gravity and the support force of the counter. When I stopped the pitcher with my hand, the orange kept moving in the direction the pitcher was thrown because my hand stopped the pitcher not the orange juice. This shows the property of inertia in action. If there were no forces to act upon the pitcher and the juice it could have gone on forever like it would in a vacuum. I did not have a camera handy when the bartender slide my O.J. toward me so I had to recreate at home but the picture shows the concepts talked about in this blog.