Last time we discussed the force of friction, another force in our ongoing discussion about changing forms of energy, and we learned that it’s often a counterproductive force which design engineers and engineering experts must work to minimize in order to optimize functionality of devices we’re designing. Today we’ll introduce the frictional force formula, which computes the amount of…
We’ve been discussing the different forms energy takes, delving deeply into de Coriolis’ claim that energy doesn’t ever die or disappear, it simply changes forms depending on the tasks it’s performing. here we’ll combine mathematical formulas to derive an equation specific to our needs, an activity my work as an engineer frequently requires of me. Our task today is to find a means to…
My activities as an Engineer often involve creative problem solving of the sort we did in last week’s blog when we explored the interplay between work and kinetic energy. We used the Work-Energy Theorem to mathematically relate the kinetic energy in a piece of ceramic to the work performed by the friction that’s produced when it skids across a concrete floor. A new formula was derived…
As an engineer, I often use the fact that formulas share a single common factor in order to set them equal to each other, which enables me to solve for a variable contained within one of them. Using this approach we’ll calculate the velocity, or speed, at which the broken bit of ceramic from the coffee…
In A previous Topic we watched a video of Astronauts Scott and Irwin simultaneously dropping a hammer and feather to the surface of the Moon and were amazed to find that the objects struck the surface at exactly the same time. It was history in the making, and Galileo’s theory regarding gravity was proven beyond a…
Previous Topic we discovered that objects acquire potential energy as it relates to gravity based on the height those objects are elevated above the ground. We also introduced an equation to calculate the potential energy of a coffee mug perched on a shelf. We’ll work with that equation today and compute the latent energy that’s hidden within…
Last time we learned kinetic energy as the energy of movement. Today we’ll see how to calculate it, using French mathematician Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis’ formula as set out in his textbook, Calculation of the Effect of Machines. We’ll then apply his formula to our example of a coffee mug falling from its shelf. Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis’ book…
As a young school boy I found it hard to believe that scientists were able to compute the mass of our sun. After all, a galactic-sized measuring device does not exist. But where there’s a will, there’s a way, and by the 18th Century scientists had it all figured out, thanks to the work of others before…
Last time we calculated the sun’s force of gravity acting upon Earth. It was the final unknown quantity within Newton’s equation to determine the mass of the sun, an equation we’ve been working with for some time now. Today we’re set to discover just how big the sun is. Newton’s formula, introduced in a previous Topic in this…
Last time we learned how Henry Cavendish used Christiaan Huygens’ work with pendulums to determine the value of g, the acceleration of gravity factor for Earth, to be 32.3 ft/sec2, or 9.8 m/sec2. From there Cavendish was able to go on and arrive at values for other factors in Isaac Newton’s gravity formula, namely G, the universal…