Blog 9 - Electric Charges

While at my uncle's house this weekend, he was doing one of his old hobbies, fixing old cars.  While watching him, I saw that he was cutting iron parts, and that there were some iron filings falling on the floor.  I asked him if he needed help cleaning it up, but he told me its fine as he has an old speaker part that is magnetized.  He uses this part to pick up metal shavings that end up on the floor.  I realized that this was the perfect use of static electricity and charge.  His use of electric charge allows for fast clean up, and further proves that physics is everywhere.  This part works because metal easily loses electrons, becoming positively charged, and this part must be negatively charged, so that it can easily pick up the metal.  Also, while filling up my gas at the gas station, I saw the warning label for static electricity.  I don't know if this is still extra credit, but there it is!

Blog 8 - Torque

As inspiration for my blog, I asked my family members to try and balance a broom with 1 finger, after about a half an hour of laughter, they all finally were able to balance the brooms.  My family members didn't know how torque worked, that is t=Fr.  Torque is the force that causes things to have a net rotational acceleration, and to balance something, its net torque must be 0.  To accomplish this, there must be an equal amount of torque on both sides on the fulcrum, my finger.  The broom balances in this location because although the sweeping side of the broom is heavier, its lever arm is short, therefore, making its torque not very large, and the handle side of the broom has a low mass but its level arm is very long, making its toque big enough to balance the torque from the heavier side of the broom.  Torque is always a fun way to have an afternoon full of laughs with the family, and an excuse to not clean up my room!