Nov 28Member-onlyModeling a Double Pendulum with Python and SympyI’ll be honest. This is really just a big reminder for me. You see, I’m going to forget how to do this at some point in the future. So hopefully, when I do an internet search on the double pendulum I will find this post. Really, that makes this sort…Physics11 min readPhysics11 min read
Aug 28Member-onlyArtemis Physics PostsThe Artemis I mission is scheduled for August 29th (2022) to launch the uncrewed Orion spacecraft in a journey to the moon (and back). I didn’t write a blog post about this, and I feel like I should have. OK, instead here are a bunch of posts and videos related…Physics4 min readPhysics4 min read
Aug 27Member-onlyNew to Scuba Diving? Here Are My Diving Tips.Oh, I hear you are going to start a scuba diving class. Or maybe you headed off for a 2 month adventure where you do a WHOLE bunch of scuba diving including scuba certification all the way through Dive Master. Great. I’m sure you will have fun. I’m going to…Scuba Diving6 min readScuba Diving6 min read
Aug 13Member-onlyProjectile Motion with Linear DragWith normal (plain vanilla) projectile motion, there’s only one force acting on an object — the downward pulling gravitational force. If the object is near the surface of the Earth, this force is constant. With a constant force, projectile motion is fairly (but not completely) straight forward. But what about…Physics12 min readPhysics12 min read
Jul 29Member-onlyHow Would You Build a Pile Driver on the Moon?Who cares about pile drivers — especially on different planets? Well, apparently Zach Weinersmith does. This seems like a great physics question — so I’m going to find a solution. But first, let’s take a moment to recognize that I actually had a picture of a pile driver. Yes…Physics6 min readPhysics6 min read
May 16Member-onlyCalculating the Speed to Get to Low Earth Orbit (and Other Calculations)I was rather disappointed when I did an internet search for “speed to low earth orbit” and didn’t get an answer right away. Fine, let’s fix that. I’m going to go through all the calculations for orbits and stuff. The answers will be right here at the top with the…Physics11 min readPhysics11 min read
May 9Member-onlyVideo Analysis of the Rich Strike’s Comeback Win at the Kentucky DerbyI don’t really do much with horse races, but you have to admit that this is like the Atlanta Falcons being up 28–3 over the New England Patriots — and then the Patriots win. Sorry if you are Falcons fan. I know that one hurts. OK, so here’s the deal…Physics6 min readPhysics6 min read
Apr 26Member-onlyThree Solutions for the Simple Harmonic OscillatorLet’s be honest — the world is made of springs. OK, maybe they aren’t literally springs but they are approximately springs. Yes, for small oscillations we can approximate stuff as a simple harmonic oscillator. The Physics Problem Suppose you have a mass (m) connected to a spring and the mass…Physics8 min readPhysics8 min read
Mar 16Member-onlyModeling a Wave on a String With the Finite Difference Method in PythonThere’s a very good chance that you have at least plucked a guitar string. When you do that, you deform the string under tension with some initial state. After that, the “plucked” parts of the string interact with the other parts of the string — and you get a wave. …Physics11 min readPhysics11 min read
Mar 1Member-onlyExamples of Stoke’s Theorem and the Divergence Theorem Using PythonYou might not realize that they are important in physics — but you pretty much need both Stoke’s Theorem and the Divergence Theorem for vector stuff (like Maxwell’s Equations). However, they can be a little difficult to comprehend. I’m not going to derive these two equations, instead I am just…Mathematics12 min readMathematics12 min read
