Freaky Fzx Friday - Gluons

Nuclei contain protons all smashed into a tiny space.  Since positive protons strongly repel each other, what kind of krazy glue holds them together?  It's a particle we call the GLUON.

Atoms are tiny.  Take a look at the thickness of your fingernail and imagine that you could split that thickness into ten million - 10,000,000 - parts.  That's the size of the atom.

Take that atom width and split it into 10,000 equal parts and that's the nucleus.  One tenth that diameter is the size of a proton or neutron and split that by 1,000 again and you have the quarks from a story two weeks ago.

The atom is the solar system and the nucleus is the sun.  The rest is empty.

Teach Fzx Tuesday - Plagiarism

My children lie, cheat, and steal on a regular basis.  It seems that the little angels are far from the innocent cherubs we imagine them to be.

TheBoy used to take things from LittleBoy until he got bigger.  Now LittleBoy punches, kicks, and pushes his big brother on a regular basis.  Each knows exactly how to send the other into a screaming fit of rage.  And LittleBoy annoys BabyGirl enough to make her cry at least five times a day.

So we have to train the children of our society not to lie, cheat, or steal and all of us know adults who need more honesty lessons.  The task of teaching these lessons falls on parents, teachers, and coaches and it is a difficult job.

Freaky Fzx Friday: Wave <==> Particle Duality

ELECTRONS DO NOT ORBIT THE NUCLEUS LIKE PLANETS ORBIT THE SUN.

Don't feel bad if you thought they did since even the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission thinks so.  Check out their chosen symbol:

Even though the electrons have almost nothing to do with NUCLEAR fission, that's what they put on their main page.

Fzx in Action - Dryer Belt Replacement

The dryer drum quit turning and it wasn't drying my clothes.  Since I figured that hanging them out to dry in sub-freezing temps wasn't going to work, I popped off the little inspection door and took a gander inside.  I could hear the motor whirring so I was looking for a broken belt.

Those belts are fiber-reinforced

Teach Fzx Tuesday - Waste Paper

We often tell our children conflicting stories.

          "Clean your plate for the starving people in North Korea."

          "But Dad, why don't you send some of your food to those kids?  You're too fat anyway."

Food discussions, however, only affect learning if the kid's starving so here's another:

          "Save the trees" by conserving paper.

          "Show all your work" in your algebra problem.

That one has definitely caused me grief

Freaky Fzx Friday - Protons Neutrons Quarks

We covered SPLITTING THE ATOM  and SPLITTING THE NUCLEUS in December.  A nucleus is made of protons and neutrons and this is how we normally imagine it to be.

As with everything else in physics, the reality is much more complicated.

Teach Fzx Tuesday - Geometric Momentum Problems

Two dimensional conservation of momentum problems are complicated.  For the conceptual physics student, even one dimensional momentum problems are often too complicated.  So I came up with an easier method.  Here's an example.

First we sketch before and after the collision.  That's the normal part.

Teach Fzx Tuesday - Struggle

We fail.  On rare occasions we fail because we're just not smart enough.  Mostly we fail since we don't have the desire and persistence to complete the task.  And let's be honest, persistence is a learned skill.

I was at a friend's house years ago and his firstborn was three.  He was walking and talking but he wasn't building - Dad wouldn't let him use those MegaBlocks alone.  Kid said "Dad, could you build a house?"  So Dad built a house.  It was obvious that Dad did the building and Son did the requesting and the watching.  Trained to be passive.

Fzx in Action - Vacuum Fix

The sweeper part of the canister vac had a bad connection.  My wife found it, pointed it out, and asked me to fix it.

Freaky Fzx Friday - Quantum Tunneling

Here's the family atop Rocky Mountain National Park in 2012.

LittleBoy was only 9 months old.

Accelerate Safely - net force and time for collisions

We take our first form of Newton's Second Law of Motion and modify it.

It's still the 2nd Law but a different look. Newton found that momentum is an important quantity so we express it in terms of "Net Impulse" and "Change in Momentum."

Teach Fzx Tuesday - NET force and NET impulse and NET work

Newton, in the late 1600s, finally understood the basic laws governing motion but we still get it wrong three centuries later.  Newton's Second Law of Motion originally went something like

"the change in momentum of an object is produced by (and equal to) the net impulse applied."  Except Newton didn't use anything like "NET impulse" even though that's what he meant.

Sometimes textbooks get it basically right