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...also known as Ice Palace. Sorry, I don't have any pictures for it but just bear with me. Just picture that ice cube all over the ground, then you got the gist of it.So today, me and some friends went there for funzies. The first thing I noticed was the ice. It wasn't just ice, there was also water. The temperature of that mix was 0 degrees, but the continuous entrance and movement of people's bodies did not help to get the water back to its frozen state. No change in temperature means no change in energy. Not including the ice and water that gets displaced by skates.The second thing I noticed was the skates. The shoes themselves are built so the only way you could get completely off balance is if you eat it on the ice. Or your leg breaks above the shoe (which I don't think you'd get to that point, but whatever). So despite the potential energy, there is almost no allowance for torque in the shoe. The metal skate gives little friction so gliding on ice would be easy, if sliding wasn't already a given on watery ice. The only thing is the points of support are below the center of gravity, and since I can't skate at all, I had a difficult time keeping the center in a position that wouldn't cause me to topple over.I know I should be taking risks, but I've had bad memories of Ice Palace that won't allow me to shake off my controlled, careful, and slow skating. That's okay; at least it shows me that although I'm not good at any sport, I can at least be a lot more competent in sports that are related to living in a non-snowy place...I guess...Yay for living it up during spring break!
My brother just left for Chicago T_T. I won't see him 'till May (hopefully). I'm gonna miss the weeklong no-leftover-dinners/lunches :P. So last weekend, to celebrate my birthday and my brother's spring break with his friend, we went to a luau at Paradise Cove (by Ko'olina). We had a couple of hours to kill, so we wandered around trying all the "ancient Hawaiian" games and activities. One of the activities was swinging around poi balls since they were used as weapons, and now as entertainment. Needless to say, we failed. Horribly.What does this have to do with Physics? Well, first off, there was tension in the ropes due to the weight of the balls. When we (attempted) to swing them in a circle, there was an acceleration directed radially inward. Since it was in a vertical circle, gravity also took its toll, making it slow down as the ball when upwards and quickening its speed when it went downwards. It wasn't helpful that we had to try with two balls in the same hand, going in opposite directions. Darn you, gravity, and probably a dozen other factors that caused me to be pummeled by those things every five seconds.Sorry that this week's blog is so lame. I'm currently baking and my English grade depends on it. Yay for chocolate cake! Boo for it failing on me!!!
Dr. Webb Brit Lit people, you know what I'm talking about for my title. Hehe. So on Friday, my brother and his friend came over from Chicago for their spring break (so early T_T). The first thing I saw them do when I came home-other than pass out on the couches-was go outside and look at the rainbows. I think his friend never saw a rainbow before, or at least not as intense, because he went out and shot lots of pictures of it. It kind of reminded me of that Romantic poem we studied in Brit Lit how the author gets excited whenever he sees a rainbow. Now all I look forward to is seeing the rainbow and yelling out "REFRACTION!"Not really, but in my head I shout it out. We just learned in our reading how rainbows are formed as light hits the droplets of waters, which allows a sort of prism effect. But it's not like we see an endless amount of rainbows, one for each droplet. Since the droplets provide a different medium from the air, refraction occurs. Unfortunately, there is also a total internal reflection due to light hitting the droplets at a certain angle, so each color of the spectrum of light starts refracting at different angles. That way, when we see the prism effect, only rays at a certain angle hit us instead of all of them so we see a giant rainbow (or two) instead of a mess of color.Yay for rainbows! Boo for it drizzling right now so rainbows can't be seen!
