Hovercraft Lab!

Personally I did not ride on the hovercraft, but from what I observed the constant speed in which the hovercraft moved in was interesting! From what other people said, it felt weird. The constant state of motion and lack of control of the speed and direction are foreign to us. We, humans, are always in control of our speed and direction, always accelerating or negatively accelerating. Even just the concept of the continuous motion that the hovercraft will remain in without a force to stop it is hard to grasp. Since we live on Earth with gravity, the average human does not experience what it is like to be in motion continuously and constantly.

The hovercraft explained a lot of things. With inertia the hovercraft was able to remain in a constant motion until someone forced it to stop. The net force that was applied to the craft was the force that put the craft into it's state of constant motion. When the hovercraft was in it's constant state of motion there was an equilibrium of no force which allowed the craft to remain in it's constant state of motion.

Acceleration depends on the net force that someone applies to the object that they are trying to move. An object with a small mass pushed with an average amount of force with cause it to accelerate more then an abject with a larger mass would. The smaller the mass, the greater the acceleration. The larger the mass, the lesser the acceleration.

In this lab, the constant velocity appeared in Phase II which was the phase after the acceleration and before the negative acceleration. The constant velocity will exist in a state of equilibrium when there is zero net force being applied.

Some members were harder to stop then others because of their amount of mass. The member with the largest mass was the most difficult to stop while the member with the smallest mass was the easiest to stop.

Inertia Resource

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6rbrFgudLg&feature=related

Physics & Such

In Physics this year I expect to learn things like why a ball keeps going up when you throw it. And why it would be wise to wear a seat belt while riding in a car and how it can affect your life if you don’t. I would like to learn little things such as the cause of tides. I expect to learn just exactly what physics is and how it pertains to my life.

I think that studying physics is important just like studying any other subject would be important. It is important to know about the things around you and how they work. For example if you know about how a seat belt in a car and how it can save your life in certain situations you will be more inclined to wear it and it can one day end up saving your life. Knowing physics could be useful for people who see a science career in their future. Physics could be useful for athletes such as baseball players. If a player knows the science in a successful hit, then they could train themselves to hit successful hits and be successful baseball players.

I have a lot of questions about physics considering I really do not know much of anything about the subject of physics. So for starters, what exactly does physics study? Are there various types of physics? What sort of physics are we going to be doing? Is there a lot of math in physics?

In physics this year my main goal is to do well. I would like to get good grades throughout the year along with being challenged and remaining interested in what we are learning. Obviously one of my goals would be to learn a lot and another would be to decide whether physics is something that I would like to pursue later in life or not.