Tuesday, October 21, 2008

10/21 Class

Today in class Dr. Ezrailson began by talking about buoyancy. A buoyant force is the net upward force that a fluid exerts on an immersed object. She showed us a simulation of a weight being submerged into a container of water, and we made a hypothesis as to what we thought would happen. We learned that the weight of the water pushed aside is the buoyant force. We also learned about Archimedes' Principle. Water displaced is = to water pushed aside from an object. We also looked at a simulation of this concept. She told us that boats have wider dimensions that their height, which enables them to float. Next, we did a project that involved an empty beaker, a beaker with a funnel, and a ping-pong ball. We were to blow on the ball that was in the funnel and tried to make it "jump" into the empty beaker. From this we learned that the air being blown on the ball created a force. The egg jumped out of the first beaker into the second due to pressure being blown on it. If we blew on the near side of the ball it stayed in a state of equilibrium. The stronger blowing force the further the ball would go. Force of wind is directly proportional to the distance it went. After the project we were then given time to work on our midterm projects and sign up for the day we wanted to present.

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