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What happens when you take some basic, introductory physics and apply them to cool things you see? Dot Physics happens. This blog looks at movies, experiments, demos and other topics typically aimed at the introductory physics level.
Rhett Allain is an Associate Professor of Physics at Southeastern Louisiana University. He
enjoys teaching and talking about physics. Sometimes he takes things apart and can't
put them back together.
April 28, 2010
Category: acceleration
Normally, it isn't really news when a show doesn't do anything wrong. I am making an exception for ESPN's Sport Science. Here is part 2 of Sport Science trying to reproduce Kobe Bryant's "jumping over a car" stunt.
Posted by Rhett Allain at 3:59 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: acceleration
You see in my experimental determination of the location of the accelerometer in an iPod, I used two different iPhone apps. Let me briefly mention some of the free iPhone apps that give you acceleration data.
Posted by Rhett Allain at 9:24 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 27, 2010
Category: acceleration
While playing with this, I realized that the acceleration depends on the distance of the sensor from the center of the circle of rotation. Where is this sensor? Don't tell me, I want to figure it out experimentally.
Posted by Rhett Allain at 10:25 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 26, 2010
Category: air resistance
There is this "mini-conference" with three schools: Southeastern Louisiana University, Southern Mississippi University, and the University of South Alabama. The purpose is to give students (and some faculty) a chance to present their work at a smaller conference.
Posted by Rhett Allain at 9:40 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 24, 2010
Category: acceleration
So, the guy jumps from 150 feet into some cardboard boxes. Why are the boxes important? You want something that can stop you in the largest distance to make your acceleration the smallest.
Posted by Rhett Allain at 4:13 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 22, 2010
I would just like to take this post and use it to promote some relatively new blogs that I like. Speaking of blogs, I think I have classified blog posts into 3 different kinds
Posted by Rhett Allain at 10:58 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: energy
Earth Day is today. If I would have thought of this before, I could have done something awesome. Instead, here are some reposts related to the Earth and energy. They have been sitting for a while in my post-compost, so they are nice and smelly
Posted by Rhett Allain at 8:42 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 21, 2010
Category: attack
The goal of this segment was to examine why Jason is so awesome at tackling. The answer: because he can do flips. Really, that was the answer. Let me briefly go over some of the problems with this segment.
Posted by Rhett Allain at 10:44 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 19, 2010
Category: acceleration
I understand that in common usage, things like "force" can be used lots of different ways. I am ok with that. Also, sometimes a person on a show will use a term incorrectly MythBusters do this all the time.
Posted by Rhett Allain at 2:50 PM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 16, 2010
Category: acceleration
One of the things I always think is interesting is to consider objects of different size. Perhaps the general idea is that you can just scale stuff up or down as you like. But, it doesn't work this way. Let me start with my own spaceship. It is a sphere with a thruster on the back.
Posted by Rhett Allain at 2:39 PM • 44 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
