FTW IS WTF SPELLED BACKWARDS

So on Wednesday, I went to Kaiser Bowl to body board with Dustin, Kai, Troy, Sean, and David. The forecast said something ridiculous like a 8+ south swell or something, so we went, and I thought I was gonna die. But I didn’t. The waves weren’t even that big. During sets, probably 6-7 max, but Dustin said it was much bigger before. Well, I just so happened to have my camera at the time, and I was taking videos for my physics video. I thought using the ocean’s waves were too generic, so I took this one instead. Its a picture of the sun reflecting off the side of the Waikiki Prince Hotel, my most favorite hotel in Waikiki. Because the hotel is perpendicular to the ground, only the vertical light waves are reflected off of it to make the glare. So, if one has polarized sunglasses, and tilts the glasses sideways, the glare should be blocked out. The glasses act as a filter to only let horizontal light through, and blocks out the vertically polarized glare.

This picture isn’t glare though, it’s the reflection of the setting Waikiki sun.

So, I was browsing the internet and saw pictures of galaxies colliding, and I was like wow. This has nothing to do with physics, but it looks so cool. And then I looked at the caption:

“…shows a Hubble view of IC 1623, an interacting galaxy system that is very bright when observed in the infrared. One of the two galaxies, the infrared-bright, but optically obscured galaxy VV 114E, has a substantial amount of warm and dense gas. Warm and dense gas is also found in the overlap region connecting the two nuclei. Observations further support the notion that IC 1623 is approaching the final stage of its merger, when a violent central inflow of gas will trigger intense starburst activity that could boost the infrared luminosity above the ultraluminous threshold. IC 1623 is located about 300 million light-years away from Earth.” – I think this is copyrighted by the Associated Press. So.. yeah. I’m citing them here.

I understood every word completely. Well, there is the word infrared in there. And because it’s bright when viewed in the infrared, does that mean the galaxy is giving off a lot of heat? Because night-vision goggles have infrared and then you can see body heat given off by other people. How does it pick up heat? Well, I wikipedia’d it and I learned that infrared waves is the same as heat radiation. The heat from people’s bodies radiate and give off heat. Also, the visible light from the sun only accounts for 49% of the heat on earth. The other half comes from objects and the earth itself absorbing the sun’s visible light, and then giving it off as infrared light (something happens, and the wavelength gets longer). Pretty mind-blowing, if you ask me.

This weekend, i went to josh lee’s house and got locked outside. Yeah, no one was home so josh had to climb the side of his house to get to his parents’ room’s window and then somehow got inside to let me and cory back in. so while i was outside, i was riding this wave board thing… and I’m like… whoa waves. That’s what we’re learning now in physics, during periods 7 and sometimes 8. It’s like a skateboard but rotates in the middle, the front controls turns and the back controls speed, depending on how much you move it. WAIT that’s not a wave at all. Well, the way you make it move is like a sine or cosine curve, so it’s like a wave like that. You can control the frequency using speed, and you can control the amplitude by turning. It’s pretty fun, but I’ve seen kids riding it around town and stuff, which is stupid because you can’t even go fast on it. And it tires you out after probably about… a block or two of riding. Whoever made the waveboard is stupid.

This past weekend, I went to Hawaiian Brians to play pool and the new Beatmania IIDX 15th Style DJ Troopers game. Even though I’m really bad at the game, and wouldn’t have even beaten a single song, Chris Sugii was playing on the Player 2 side to keep the game going. Beatmania consists of a turntable and 7 buttons, and it is exactly like Dance Dance Revolution where you just need to press the correct button when it flashes on the screen. Anyway, it reminded me of what we did in class: listen to Kohara’s uhh… what do you call those things… phonograph? record player. Before that class, I never knew how those things worked, but it’s really interesting how simply putting grooves on something, and then scratching it, is able to produce music. Even on Kohara’s Bob Marley record, you could hear the cheers of people in the background, and lots of stuff, showing the quality of the music contained on those old records.

Here’s a picture of the beatmania control pad with the 7 buttons and turn table.

So this past weekend, I went to the ward movie theater with branden, ashley, cory, dustin, chris, daniel, clay, and ashley’s friend whom i still don’t know. I saw that transformer you took a picture of. I’m pretty sure branden and ashley did not. I’m so perceptive and knowledgeable! Yayyyyyyyy.
I also went to a track meet at Kamehameha school. Driving up that mountain is pretty fun if you go fast, but watch out for the speed bumps b/c I’m pretty sure that my suspension got a little owned yesterday as I drove up. Also when I was making a turn, my dad said something about centripetal force… I corrected him by telling him that centripetal force isn’t real, and it’s centrifugal force which pushes the car to the axis of rotation. It’s just that the passengers in the car feel a force outward due to the car turning and the passengers wanting to fly outward at an angle tangent to the point in the circle of rotation. Not bad, eh? I still remember some things from 1st semester. I can barely remember anything from chemistry though… except that like… gamma rays are neutrons, or something.

This was from last year… dude I was a fatty.. but still slower than clay.

So this past weekend, I went on an adventure. Sorta. But the thing was that I took my car… which has a motor. And motors work by using a current and a magnet to cause motion. So then I got to thinking, how does an elevator work? Well, it doesn’t have to be an elevator, but what about those motors that constantly switch directions and stuff. Is the motor set up in such a way that the magnet moves away so the motor stops working or something? I’m baffled. But maybe it has something to do with an alternating current rather than direct? And then my dad and I went to taco bell.

And at TaCo BeLL, I saw Dr. Lindsay. He was by himself. I didn’t say “Hi” or anything, because he wouldn’t know me. But I just thought that it was a physics related experience.

Oh, and my friend got Super Smash Bros Brawl. It’s pretty fun, I gotta say. It’s exactly like Melee but more better. I was owning hard with Marth and Zero Suit Samus.

Pit and Meta Knight are overpowered.

chyea. well i went hardcore halo on friday playing from like 10 to 5. and the xbox started making weird noises because it was there was too much ownage on it or something. Overheating, probably… not enough resistance in the circuit? Probably not, since overheating is an entirely different problem. Although it is quite interesting how batteries get hot when there’s a circuit with no resistance: due to friction… i think. Anyway, that pickle in class the other day was intense. It glowed and everything and got burnt and some other stuff. Is that because the pickles are special or because they’ve been soaked in the salt water – therefore they get Na+ and Cl- ions in them to make a circuit? ? ? ? question marks. Anyway uh, haha, I’m looking at my outlet right now for my computer and how it has like 8 things plugged in now. Not all the stuff is on though. But there’s nintendo ds, ipod, psp, tv, phone, lamp, external hard drive, and another plug that I don’t know plugged in atm. Good Job me.

Looking at the huge amounts of electrical appliances in my study room, I can say, “wow there’s so much capacitance in here that my head’s gonna explode.” But not really. So like there’s capacitors in my computer. and external hard-drives. and keyboard? Yeah, probably. Speaking of keyboards, I found one under my bed. It uses 6 of 1.5V D batteries and I learned how to play the melody of Fur Elise. Hahahahaha. Dood i pwn at playing piano. But not really since Brad is epic piano master.
I also went running… on a dumb treadmill. It was interesting because every single time I touched the buttons, I got shocked. Every single time. It got ridiculous after a while because I kept banging my hand on the side or something and got shocked. Also I was like, well I wanna run faster, so I press the + speed button and I get shocked. But then it only increased my speed by .1 mph which is for pansies. I wanted to go like 8 mph or 64 mph or something like that… so for 8 mph, that means I needed to push the button 80 times… so I got shocked 80 times + the number of times I bumped my hand against the sides + start button + stop button + incline increase button… so yeah. Ridiculous. I think the treadmill wasn’t grounded or something… I think? I’m not sure.

B DOWN

This past martin luther weekend I went to the beach and i went to the brians and i played wow and halo and i got to like come sort of corporal class or some thing like that, idk. You may wonder what I’m going to talk about in this journal. The answer: skimboarding.

So skimboarding. pretty good. idk, it’s far less awesome than body boarding but its still kinda fun. There’s a litte physics in it. Friction and other stuff happens. First you accelerate to a high velocity, then at the peak velocity, you put your board on the sand and jump on it and slide until you get owned by a wave or a rock or a person in your way. While you’re on the board, 2 forces act on you, friction and gravty. The friction is in the direction opposite of your movement and it decelerates you. The board and the sand has a high coeff of kinetic friction, but when the sand is wet, it gets much lower and you can slide for long distances, depending on the beach terrain. Its important in timing because you don’t want to have a lot of water to slide on because you don’t go far, but you don’t want too little because you slow down too quickly. So, timing when to slide inbetween the ebbs in the tide is important. Speaking of tide, there’s another physics thing: gravitaitonal pull. When there’s a full moon, I heard that waves get bigger by a little bit because the moon pulls more on it or something… huh… wait… what? is that true?

To show that I didn’t forget everything from Physics because of the vacation:
“Put the fulcrum at one of the unknown forces to cancel out a variable.”

haha. and that’s about all I remember. Oh. Rotational Inertia changes depending on what type of object is spinning and there’s like 5 or so different equations for like… a sphere and a pancake and other shapes.

During this break there was a lot of physics related things happening. I’ll try to remember. Oh. I went to lift weights like 3 times a week or so during the vacation. And on several machines, the metal plates add more mass to the bar. So then when the bars are lifted, the person lifting uses more energy. This is because there is a greater change in energy: PE = mgh. The mass increased, so more PE. The change in energy comes from the amount of PE put into the bar with weights. Initial PE is 0 if the reference level is the ground, and final PE is mgh… I think. I’m not even fully sure this is correct anymore.

As for torque, well. Y’know, like bicep curls. Those own. Your elbow is the point of rotation and its like BOOM ow my bicep! cuz you’re like all working out and all good stoof like that.
Also theres pull overs where it works your triceps and your elbow’s the focal point and its like the weight’s over your head. and it hurts your triceps.
Also there’s those hamstring things: you’re lying down on your stomach and your knee is the rotation point and the weight is on your ankles and you’re trying to bend your knees but it’s reel hard and you’re like “ah im cramping!” Those hurt. I have real weak hamstrings and calves for some reason. So junk because it hurts real bad after cross country practices. But, not so much anymore since xc ended and track is far away, like in the beginning of february. Good thing it’s still… oh man. january. AHH NO.

Oh man. I’m looking damn beefy in this picture.