Units 5-6 Flashcards
What does a bathroom scale actually measure since it doesn’t measure your weight?
It measures the contact force between you and the floor (not your weight).
Stand on a scale in an elevator to see how it changes.
True or False: When a basketball player jumps horizontally to dunk the basketball, they stay in the air the same amount of time as if they had jumped straight up?
True
Which means that if you go really high vertically jumping, you can go further horizontally jumping
Explain how air friction works.
Air is just made up of a bunch of molecules with mass. You can figure out the mass (hypothetically) of each molecule and use that to calculate force and acceleration. Then when you consider how many air molecules their ARE, that calculated acceleration adds up quick and restricts whatever is pushing against it.
(Fly and train)
What is the one accelerating object on earth that is large enough to affect earth’s rotations?
The gravitational pull of daily ocean tides (caused by the moon).
Earth’s rotation slows because of friction with the water.
Fun fact: 400 million years ago, an earth day was only 22 hours long!
WOAH!
What is happening when something has reached terminal velocity?
Gravity balances air friction, so the net force and acceleration go to zero. Velocity remains constant.
Freefall
The act of always falling under the pure influence of gravity and NO OTHER FORCES
Are astronauts truly “weightless” in space?
No, because weight is affected by gravity, and they are still being pulled by earth (although at a slightly different amount because they’re hundreds of km farther away from earth’s center).
They’re just in a state of freefall while travelling with a rocket ship (at the same speed as the rocket). They have no other forces acting upon them.
What’s another name for a sideways force?
Centripetal
What is the centripetal force equation?
Force = (mass x speed^2) / radius
True or False: When being pulled inward by a centripetal force, a centrifugal force is pulling you outward
FALSE
The only force needed to create a circular motion is centripetal.
True or False: The stronger the sideways force, the tighter the turn
True
True or False: Friction is a centripetal force
True.
Different kinds of forces can act as a centripetal force.
Is force related to velocity?
NO
Force is wondering how an object’s motion is changing, not how fast or what direction the object happens to be going right now.
True or False: Air is classified as a gas
FALSE
It’s classified as a fluid because it flows
True or False: All gases are classified as fluids
True
Other than friction what are some of aspects of force that fluids create?
Gravity and pressure
What is the Pressure equation?
Pressure = Force / Area
What is pressure?
The total force on an object divided by the area over which the force is applied.
What is a fluid?
Anything that flows
Why don’t your feet hurt standing on them, but your toes hurt when you stand on tiptoes?
Because of pressure.
You’re exerting the same amount of force down on the ground (which is exerting that force up on you), but the pressure is dispersed over a smaller surface area (just your toes). That means your toes have to deal with all that contact force on them instead of having it spread out over the whole feet.
Why are high heels bad for the floor?
Because you’re exerting a high force over a teeny tiny area, which greatly multiples the total pressure. Materials being walked on are often not strong enough to support that much pressure.
That’s also why high heels break. The floor is exerting the same force up onto a tiny area, and the point of the heel must be strong enough to endure that pressure.
What are “bounded” fluids?
They are wholly contained. Like a water balloon or water bottle.
What are “unbounded” fluids?
Fluids that lack boundaries on one or more sides, like the oceans or the atmosphere.
True or False: Unbounded fluids are pulled toward the earth and held in place by gravity.
True
What would an unbounded fluid do if allowed to continue flowing?
They would move downward until there was nowhere else for them to go. Then the flow would stop.
What are the four rules of unbounded fluids?
- Pressure depends on depth only and is greater at greater depth.
- Pressure is the same for all points at the same depth
- Pressure at a given depth is independent of direction
- Pressure is always perpendicular to the surface of a submerged object
True or False: Pressure depends on volume of a fluid
FALSE
True or False: Pressure depends on surface area of a fluid
False