decorating a christmas tree

well, it's that time of year again! time for the tree to be decorated. time for presents. time for singing the birth of jesus. time for decorating a christmas tree!

so, for christmas, i helped decorate the tree (may i add that i only had the help from my mom and my little sister and no help from my brother and my dad). I must say, it is quite fun to decorate, but it also brings out physics principals!

For example, when picking up the ornaments, i am doing work. this is because i am moving an object in the direction of force that it is moving. score for physics! it's everywhere!

another physics example that i found while decorating the tree was that at the very top, i started to need the use of a stool of some sort to get to the very top. When i was bringing the ornaments to hand, potential energy was being added to that object because it was being moved to a greater height. also, i needed to make sure that my center of mass was being supported, otherwise i would fall while putting high ornaments on the christmas tree, and that would be very painful.

to think that christmas would bring out the spirit of physics!

box sliding

Although box sliding is a fun way to get hurt, it is also a fun way of learning about physics. Box sliding requires a hill with an angle. to slide as far as you can to get to the bottom of the hill takes skill and velocity. One must have a high initial velocity before landing on the cardboard to slide down the hill. unfortunately, in this picture, i had velocity but no skill on landing on the cardboard, so i totally wiped out.

also, the acceleration of gravity is the force that sends me downward. the only reason that i come to a stop is because friction makes me accelerate negatively, therefore making me slow down until i finally stop. the friction of grass on the cardboard is higher than friction of cardboard on cardboard, so therefore if i were to slide on cardboard, i would have slid down the hill longer than when i slid down on the grass.

that's enough pain for one day. :) peace.