Hairbrush

Over the years, I've realized that when I brush my hair, it gets "staticy" and won't stay flat for a while. Sometimes, the same thing happens at school when I am sitting in a chair with my hair against the back of my chair. This is because when I rub my hair against something like a hairbrush or a chair, each hair has the same charge and like charges repel. I used to get really annoyed when my hair would not stay flat. However, I found an ionic brush that reduces the static electric forces when I am brushing my hair. The ionic brush somehow maintains the balance of opposite charges in my hair so that hairs of opposite charges attract each other and my hair stays flat. Brushing long hair can be a pain sometimes, especially if it's really tangled, because you have to exert more force to undo the knots.

Iphone and Earbuds

Sadly, my earbuds died...but I got to buy new ones-yay! When my earbuds died and I couldn't hear my music, I realized that this was because of physics. The battery in my iphone generates electricity to play the music and the electricity flows through the wires connecting the iphone and earbuds. Music plays through the earbuds (or is supposed to) because the electricity is converted into sound waves before traveling from the earbuds to my ears. Because electricity travels in a closed path, any break in the circuit (ie: disconnecting the earbuds or broken wires) will prevent the electricity from flowing and no music will be played. Since my current earbuds are new, all the wiring is intact and the circuit is closed when I plug my earbuds into my iphone. The closed circuit allows the electricity to flow and I can hear my music. I like my new earbuds :).

Marshmallows, M&Ms, and More

Today was a fairly nice and sunny day, so I was hanging out at the beach. My friend threw me some marshmallows and m&ms and I tried to catch them in my mouth. However, I was quite unsuccessful and the marshmallows and m&ms kept on bouncing off of my teeth or my tongue. I realized that I was failing because I wasn't using my physics knowledge. Because impulse=force x elapsed time, increasing the time of impact decreases the force of the impact. Therefore, I was more successful when i tilted my head back as I was catching the marshmallows and m&ms. It also helped when my friend threw the marshmallows and m&ms in a projectile motion with a large angle so that I had more time to make the catch. Also, when I was in the ocean, I was extremely cold because the heat from my body was moving to the colder water with a lower temperature.

Popcorn!

Yay! So I get to write a blog on my favorite food! (And I'm going to assume it's one of Doc's favorite foods too considering the constant supply of popcorn in the physics room) This afternoon, I started to pop a bag of good ol' microwave popcorn, but then I realized that I was about to witness physics! So, I ran to get my camera to take a picture of the unpopped bag of popcorn. When I stopped the microwave and opened the door to take a picture, I let heat out of the microwave because heat travels to the area of lower temperature. I closed the microwave door and after the popcorn was done, it had expanded to a volume much larger than the originally flat bag with oil and kernels. This was because of Charles's law: Vi/Ti=Vf/Tf. The microwave increased the temperature of the popcorn kernels, so they popped and increased the volume of the bag. Charles's law can be applied because the pressure and moles of gas in the bag were pretty much constant.

Personal Response to Thomas Friedman’s Hot, Flat, and Crowded

I read Thomas Friedman’s Hot, Flat, and Crowded over this winter break. It was somewhat interesting, but I found myself quite bored when my brain was getting overloaded with more information, facts, and figures than any sane person could possibly want to know. The beginning went by slowly (taking econ would have been helpful in understanding the first chapter), but as I read more of the book, I understood Friedman’s ideas more and the book seemed more relevant to my life.

The title refers to three issues in our world today. The world is becoming hot due to global warming, flat due to equality of economic opportunities across the globe, and crowded due the increasing human population across the globe. Our world has become this way because of “overconsuming, overbuilding, overborrowing, and overlending.” The current recession and global warming are related because both are results of carelessness and greed for money. The hot, flat, and crowded state of our world has also caused five more problems: increasing demand for energy/ resources, petrodictatorship, climate change, energy poverty, and biodiversity loss.

America has slowly slipped away into laziness in the area of innovation after losing Russia as a competitor. We have lost our long term thinking and replaced it with short term thinking and unsustainable ways. In order for future generations to survive, we have to stop wasting energy and materials and cradle to cradle new products. I also think that America has to wake up in innovations and pave the way like a city on a hill in the area of green technology.

Although Friedman’s Plan A code green idea does not seem feasible yet, it does sound cool and I think that it is something to strive for. He says that because everything on Earth is connected somehow, we need a whole new green system to run the world. His plan involves using clean electrons, increasing energy efficiency, slowing population growth, conserving, and adapting to inevitable climate change. I agree with Friedman’s idea of having a million Noahs, not just one, because we can’t just wait for someone else to do something miraculous; everyone has to be a part of this green effort in order for it to work.

I’ve heard about global warming before, but I realized that I’ve had that IBG/ YBG mindset all this time. Since the world doesn’t look like one of those 2012 or The Day After Tomorrow apocalyptic movies yet, I thought that global warming would take place very far in the future. However, after reading this book I have realized that global warming is a huge problem. In fact, as I was watching some New Years fireworks, it made me shudder to think of all the tons of CO₂ being sent into the atmosphere around the globe. People talk about being green, but all those fireworks made me realize that like Friedman says we’re having a green party now, not a revolution, because people are not taking enough action. Also, I think the BANANA republic idea is very true because people don’t mind the idea of a green party, but no one wants to seriously make the effort to do something to solve the problem or even be inconvenienced by a green project. We really do need to be the “re-generation” to build a new, greener planet.