I Tried to Break My Battery

In another exciting day of Pablo's life, I am trying to do homework on a Sunday with little success. I am typing my 3 page English paper up when my laptop decides that it wants to run out of energy to provide for my computer and shuts off. Of course I didn't save because that's just how life is (and there was no back up save). So I took out the battery and tried to break it. After I cooled down and hoped that my battery wasn't broken because I still needed it obviously, I looked for my adapter. At this moment I wonder what this adapter is for. At first I think it is just to charge my computer battery, which is right, but then I think a little deeper, I think into the world of science...physics. I realize that a battery produces direct current meaning it travels in one direction, repelling from the negative terminal and travels toward the positive terminal. I also know that an outlet in the wall produces an alternating current forcing the electrons in the circuit to travel first one way then back the opposite direction. Since a laptop is portable it does not plug into the wall and a battery has a different type of current than a wall outlet. I came to the conclusion that the adapter allows me to plug into a wall outlet and transfer energy from the outlet into the battery so once more I can have a portable computer. I'm glad it is called an AC adapter. Made my conclusion more persuasive.

Christmas in October

On a fine Saturday in the beginning of October, as usual, I am setting up for Christmas even before I set up for Halloween. As I struggle to untangle the wires of my cheap and somewhat retro Christmas lights I started to think about my physics journal and wondered what exciting topic I could talk about this week. Simultaneously thinking about physics I was also plugging in the Christmas lights. I began to admire my untangled, beautiful Christmas lights when all of a sudden I hear one of the miniature bulbs blow up and the rest of the lights lose there glow as well. Of course I am devastated because I spent so much time untangling those wires but I am also pleased because I realized that it was "physics in action." The cause of all the lights going out was either a short circuit or the lights are something called a "series circuit." The theory of a short circuit I easily canceled out because nothing else was plugged in or was on that would enable a blowout that would break the circuit. My Christmas lights are a series circuit which means that a continuous connection between all my lights has to be in effect in order for the current to flow. When one of my light's filament broke this caused a break in connection that is required for a series circuit to work. Since in a series circuit there is only a single pathway any break in the path would stop the flow of electrons and all the Christmas lights would go out. I did not want to find the broken bulb so I just hid the Christmas lights in the trash can. Shhhhh!

Outlets! Forks! Wood!

Well one day this past week I just happened to be by an outlet and I just so happened to have a chop stick and a fork. I always wondered what would happen if I stuck a fork into an outlet because I heard that it could shock you. Since this week in physics I have been learning about conductors and insulators, I learned that metal is a very good conductor of electrical currents and I also read that wood is a good insulator. No one was around so I was about to stick the fork into the outlet when my mom came in and said, "Stop!, metal is a good conductor and that could shock you" and for some reason also took a picture of the dumb thing i was about to do. I said, "Hey that picture will be perfect for my physics journal this week." I also got a picture of me sticking a chop stick in the outlet. Well the reason that metal, like the material my fork is made out of, is such a good conductor is because the electrons in the the outer shell of the atoms are loose and are free to wander. If the electrons were not loose and instead tightly bound and held by their atoms then no movement could occur through an object to create good electrical movement and currents. An insulator is the opposite of a conductor and do not conduct electricity well. The electrons in an insulator are tightly bound and belong to that particular object not wanting to create flow.

Waves That Rock

Sound waves are a beautiful thing.

As I was playing melodious vibrations on my guitar in both a spacious room and a hallway I suddenly thought of physics-particularly the resonance and acoustics of the instrument and amp.

First resonance: As I was tuning the last two strings of the instrument their frequencies began matching and I noticed as I hit one string the other string began to vibrate as well. The two strings had a resounding effect that made the two strings sound more full than if they were each played separately. I took this to be resonance because the forced vibration I placed on the first string matched up with the natural frequency of the next string and they both began to vibrate creating larger amplitudes.

Second acoustics: As I mentioned earlier, I played in both a hallway and a spacious room. In the spacious room there was absorbent materials such as a couch and carpet on the far wall across from me. These two absorbent objects made the music I was making lesser in volume. On the contrary, in the hallway there were only walls and a hardwood floor which made the sound reflect a lot more and because of all those reflections it created reverberations. I will admit the guitar sounded way cooler in the hallway than in the room because of the acoustics.