Idealized Science Institute – Which ramp reaches highest final speed?
An evening pause: A science quiz I suspect most of my readers will get right. Regardless, this experiment illustrates some basic fundamentals of the scientific method: Don’t guess, make no assumptions, test by experimentation, and repeat those tests multiple times to confirm your results.
The Institute that made this video appears to be a great resource for homeschoolers.
Hat tip Cotour, who tells me he “got it correct!”
To everyone: Enjoy the Labor Day weekend!
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
An evening pause: A science quiz I suspect most of my readers will get right. Regardless, this experiment illustrates some basic fundamentals of the scientific method: Don’t guess, make no assumptions, test by experimentation, and repeat those tests multiple times to confirm your results.
The Institute that made this video appears to be a great resource for homeschoolers.
Hat tip Cotour, who tells me he “got it correct!”
To everyone: Enjoy the Labor Day weekend!
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Cotour–
Check out some sample mechanical reasoning aptitude tests
https://www.practiceaptitudetests.com/bennett-mechanical-comprehension-tests/
Now let’s do a reductio ad absurdum experiment. Build a ramp that has a huge, say 5 foot diameter, set of spirals in it as it drops to the exit level for the balls. Make it at least 4 loops before the ball exits, which will add about (lessee, pi times the diameter is the circumference) 15 feet (ignoring the .14) for each loop, making it about 60 feet longer than the other ramps.
I’ll guarantee you that the ball will be exiting that ramp at a significantly lower velocity than the rest of the ramps. All due to friction, which because these ramps are so short, doesn’t have time (length) to play a measurable role given their apparatus.
The ending velocity is the same, but the AVERAGE velocity is quite different. This is not what the quiz asks, but the underlying physics is much more interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRgxJCWBKk0
This demonstration brings out the point a bit more succinctly:
https://youtu.be/4QmpKkU1OP0?si=GU5Z6m9dFAYu5W3B
Chemistry was tough for me…not so much the tests…but the labs..
My teacher wondered how I got a different thermometer reading than the rest of the class, even though she was looking right at me.
I could never get the bloody locker open either.
No wonder my Dad called me a jinx.
I did pretty well in physics because I could visualize what was happening and (most of the time) reason out what the result should be. Chemistry on the other hand – too much memorization!
I thought they were going to want us to estimate the lengths of the ramps and try to factor in friction. Simple potential to kinetic energy, Blah, there was no trick or catch.
Chemistry lab for me was just a bunch of engineer monkeys mixing stuff together psudo-randomly for ‘results’ we knew they were looking for and would pass the class.