Space Wars

It seems like outer space is always a topic of interest.  I assume this is because it is less familiar and so different than the world around us.  No matter how much time and effort we put into discovering things about space, there will always be new things that we find that will surprise us.  I think that because so much is unknown to the general public, people like you and me who don’t study space for a living, about space, this is why space movies, TV shows and books are so popular.  I know in the 70’s when the Star Wars movies first came out it was something everybody had to see.  Even now, 40 years down the road, the younger generations are still caught up with these movies.  Personally, I have never seen a space movie, but I know for a fact they are still popular today.  I have a nephew who is 10 years old and he watches the new episode of Star Wars the Clone Wars, a cartoon every Friday night.  When I ask him what he wants for Christmas, he replies with star wars figurines.  And they are not hard to find, if you walk into your local Wal-Mart or K-mart they have a whole isle dedicated to Star Wars stuff.  Since the movie and TV industries are so caught up in keeping this theme popular they may portray the space wars to be more what we think or want to happen rather than what really would happen to keep the audience interested.  I hate to burst your bubble, but the space wars that you are so in tuned to on Friday night are not realistic and if you were to see a real space war it would not be what you expected.

The best parts of the movie is when all of the fighting starts and ships are shooting at other ships and eventually one ship will blow up and  the other will claim victory.  You are drawn to the scene because of the loud noise and all of the lights and fast moving action.  As you may know, there is no air in space.  No wind or even a slight breeze, and no oxygen that we human need so we can breathe.  It is also very very cold in space and you would end up freezing to death if you didn’t have any protection.  An astronaut would not be able to survive out of his ship without his space suit.  Because there is no air, there is no sound in space.  The sound waves would have nothing to travel across and you would hear nothing when all of this action is going on.  Now, how exciting would a space war be if it had no sound?  You could be gazing at a star in the distance and right behind you and intergalactic space war could be happening right behind you and you have no idea because all you would hear is complete silence. 

Would you agree that the coolest part is watching the other ship explode into a million little pieces?  Well once again I hate to burst your bubble but this is very unlikely to happen.  Here on earth, making another object explode is devastating, but to have the same effect in space you would need a lot of energy.  Energy is not something you can go out and buy and keep it in a huge warehouse and use it when you need it.  Energy is all around us.  You know that bowl of Wheeties that you ate this morning for breakfast?  Wel,l eating gives you energy so you are able to run around at recess.  While you are running you are losing the energy that you had got earlier in the day from your Wheeties.  You get energy from the environment around you and once you use all of that energy, it is returned to the environment around.  Now back to our explosion in space.  Remember earlier how we talked about there being no air in space?  Well the air is what makes an explosion so destructive on earth.  Let’s say that you like collecting fireflies.  You spend all night outside with a jar and you are able to collect 50 fireflies in your jar.  You set the jar on the table so you can run and find your mom and dad to show them all of the fireflies that you caught.  As you and your parents are walking towards the table you see your older sister who is singing and dancing around the kitchen and she accidently knock over your jar and it hits the floor.  As it hits the floor it shatters into a million different pieces and your fireflies that you have worked so hard to collect, are now flying everywhere around your house.  This is what the explosion would be like here on earth.  But in space the explosion would be more like this.  Do you know the story of the three little pigs and the big bad wolf, who huffed and puffed and blew their houses down?  Well when the big bad wolf got to the little pig who built his house out of brick, he huffed and puffed but he could not blow the house down no matter how hard he tried.  Mr. Wolf is not going to be able to damage a brick house just by blowing on it.  He would have to find something bigger like a hammer or a big rock to throw at the house in order to cause damage to it.  In space, the explosion just creates expanding gas.  You will not be able to destroy your enemies’ ship with gas just like the wolf could not blow down the little pig’s house no matter how hard he huffed and puffed.

This is the neat thing about space, we are able to find new and exciting thing every day.  Maybe when the fist Star Wars movie came out this is how people would expect battles to happen, since that is what happens here on earth.  Now, with all of the new technology, we are able to see things for how they really are.  Above the clouds there is a whole different place out there and we as humans need to accept that not everything happens like it does on earth.

Anaylsis of a Physics Article

Dear Editor of the New York Times,

I am writing in response to the article Crunch! Oof! Well, That’s Physics, dated November 16, 2004.  I am currently a college junior and I am taking my first physics course ever.  Surprisingly, after only 5 weeks of class I am able to understand and comprehend not only the scientific terms but the concepts of what the article is actually trying to say.  I like how the article relates physics to football, it made me realize that physics can be applied to any sport or any activity of life for that matter.  I think every sports team should have a physicist on the sideline, that way the team can adjust and use every move to its fullest potential to rain over the others who just have all the muscle.  It gives a whole new meaning to the choice between muscles or brains. 

I am proud to say that I fully understand about 95% of the article without having to refer to my physics book.  The 5% that I didn’t completely understand was the part about momentum but that is only because we have not yet covered this in class.  On the other hand, I am partly able to understand it just from prior experience.  That is the great thing about physics, you might not be able to explain the motion in physics terms but everybody is familiar with motion and can explain it in common people terms (people who have never taken a physics course before).  And the author gives the definition of momentum in the article so I was able build off of that and apply it to what I already learned in class so know I have a good idea of what momentum is and I still did not have to open my book.

If you were just doing the basic calculations of two large men colliding with each other you would think that somebody would have to at least break some kind of bone.  First you would figure out the velocity, and considering both men weigh about the same and are able to run at the same speed you are able to conclude that they will have the same velocity.  After figuring out their velocity, you are then able to figure out their acceleration and the force that went into the collision.  Dr. Gray figured out that the acceleration was 9 times the force of gravity (9.8 meters/second) and the force that the players encountered was 1,800 pounds.  Dr. Gray then goes on to explain that indeed these forces are bone breaking, I mean just look at the numbers they are pretty big, but since that players only encountered the forces for a split-second, they are able to walk away unharmed.  That just amazes me how a force that is bone crunching if expressed over a period of time can be harmless if only encountered for a second. 

At first I was a little confused when they spoke of a three body collision. I had to go back and read to make sure that three players of the same team did not run into each other.  I mean come on, it is one thing if two player on the same team run into each other but three!  I think that one would have to go down in sports history.  I then was able to realize that the third body was the football itself.   Good thing that ball was involved in the collision because it takes up some of the momentum, taking some of the momentum off of the players.  This helped differ some of the force so there was not as much being put on each player.  This could have been a partial cause as to why the players were able to walk away without any injuries. The coolest part of the whole collision is that three bodied collisions are what Dr. Gray does in the lab.  I just think it is cool how you can do something on the microscopic level with electrons and then reenact the same basic principles on a life size level of football players.

When they talked about the trajectory of the ball I was really excited because I was able to apply what I had learned in class to this section.  It makes perfect sense that a tight spiral ball will go further than a ball that was poorly thrown and all wobbly.  The wobbly ball won’t travel as far because it will experience more air resistance causing more drag.  The spiral ball initially requires to be thrown faster and therefore is will be more stable and have a tight spiral which forces it to go farther than the poorly thrown ball.

As much as I do not like football I can say that I overall enjoyed reading this article.  It made me realize that what I am learning in class is not a waste of my time because physics can be applied to all factors of life.  At the beginning, I thought, why would I need physics in my future career as a physical therapist?  But everyday that I go to class I see more and more that motion is all around us and with every motion you can apply physics to that motion.  Physical therapy mainly deals with motion.  Being able to get motion back, for example being able to bend your knee again after an injury that left you unable to move your joint.  Understanding the force that initially caused the injury can be a major help when trying to heal an injury.  All of this force and motion can be explained with physics that is all around us rather we want to think of it that way or not.

Sincerely, Katie