wineo

http://www.alaska.net/~natnkell/staticgen.htm

“An electrostatic generator, or electrostatic machine, is a mechanical device that produces static electricity, or electricity at high voltage and low continuous current. The knowledge of static electricity dates back to the earliest civilizations, but for millennia it remained merely an interesting and mystifying phenomenon, without a theory to explain its behavior and often confused with magnetism. By the end of the 17th Century, researchers had developed practical means of generating electricity by friction, but the development of electrostatic machines did not begin in earnest until the 18th century, when they became fundamental instruments in the studies about the new science of electricity. Electrostatic generators operate by using manual (or other) power to transform mechanical work into electric energy. They develop electrostatic charges of opposite signs rendered to two conductors, using only electric forces. They work by using moving plates, drums, or belts to carry electric charge to a high potential electrode. The charge is generated by one of two methods: either the triboelectric effect (friction) or electrostatic induction.”

The man that came into the class to show us the static electricity experiment was so cool! he was really interesting the way he showed us the way it works. i thought it was amazing how you can transfer the electrcity through a rod attached to the static through your body to light a light you are holding with a different hand. I completely understand it however because I know how things can effect your body very easily. Like even holding a fake sugar packet (like sweet n low) can throw your body off balance completely, not even hanving it in your body.

Even holding your cellphone or having it close to you like in your pocket can negatively effect your body or standing next to your microwave while its on gives off a very low dose of radiation but it is still giving off radiation! everything having to do with electricity has to do with it! so this class freaked me out a little bit being so close and exposed to to the radiation of static electricity.

I believe i am a hypochondriac when it comes to things negatively effecting your body however id rather be paranoid than be sorry i wasnt safe. I am very happy about how electricity is all covered nowadays instead of it being out in the open like what the man brought to class because that would be giving off a lot more radiation than than the units of running electricity now.

I always wonder it energy and electricity would be better conserved it it were used indiviudally in every building instead of having nuclear power plants conducting a large amount of electricity to a very large group of people, would it be safer or less safe? I know being furthur away from any kind of radiation is better for the individual however if it were easier and more stable, could there be smaller more managable less expensive sources of energy.

emmediatley the first thing i thought of before even started the lab was the shake weight, the weight that shakes while you hold it to work out your arms and stuff, good workout!! But i liked this lab probably the most so far because it was very hands on and that is the best way i work, even the other labs were more of the objects doing the work and this time it was myself doing the work. It made it easier to know what exactly i was doing and what the entire lab was about.

This Lab was all about conducting electricity, i found that the faster you shook the generator the more electricity it gave off. This all has to do with Faraday’s Law:

“In Faraday’s first experimental demonstration of electromagnetic induction (August 29, 1831^[9]), he wrapped two wires around opposite sides of an iron torus (an arrangement similar to a modern transformer). Based on his assessment of recently-discovered properties of electromagnets, he expected that when current started to flow in one wire, a sort of wave would travel through the ring and cause some electrical effect on the opposite side. He plugged one wire into a galvanometer, and watched it as he connected the other wire to a battery. Indeed, he saw a transient current (which he called a “wave of electricity”) when he connected the wire to the battery, and another when he disconnected it.^[10] This induction was due to the change in magnetic flux that occurred when the battery was connected and disconnected.^[8] Within two months, Faraday had found several other manifestations of electromagnetic induction. For example, he saw transient currents when he quickly slid a bar magnet in and out of a coil of wires, and he generated a steady (DC) current by rotating a copper disk near a bar magnet with a sliding electrical lead.”

While shaking the generator you could hear something going back and forth back and forth, this was the battery connecting and disconnecting which is creating a current flow.

this shows the ways voltages can be generated http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/electric/farlaw.html

I have a windmill in my town that is a good source of electricity however it isnt that dependable because it depends on the amount of wind, if any.

Its amazing how many things can produce energy although we choose to stick with nuclear power plants. I do realize they are a great source of energy however the way they only last about 30 years, no one has figured out a sufficient way to destroy one either whihc is a huge downside to the building and possible re-building of the nuclear plants.

At first i was extremely hesitant to go to the reactor because of the radiation that comes off of it, i am extremely aware of things like that, like having my phone in my pocket for too long and standing next to the microwave when its on, etc. I didn’t even tell my father i went on this field trip because he would have convinced me not to go. Over all i felt very uncomfortable the entire time.

It’s convenient that i am also a communication major along with my theatre major because we just learned about how there are interruptions that come up subconsciously when we listen that allow us to tune out the things that we don’t understand or that don’t interest us, for instance i had NO idea what our tour guide was talking about when he got into specifics like the kind of “heavy” water used for the cooling system and what parts of the reactor do because i did not understand more than half of the words he was using, however i am a very hands on person so once we got into the reactor and he pointed to things and described them using daily things that i could relate to, i understood most of what he said. The Reactor itself was kind of a disappointing reveal because you couldn’t see anything besides a tank. However the number of buttons and and tools used to control and help stabilize the reactor itself was really neat to see.

It was also interesting to see students working on it because things like this are extremely interesting to them. They were doing an experiment on the reactor and i found that really cool to be able to be an undergrad and to work near and on such a dangerous and important part of the environment and energy in the world right now.

this picture is a picture of all of the buttons and gadgets i was talking about above (a very blurry picture). It’s amazing that it is so open and anyone can just push any button. I found it interesting that so many things on the wall were fluctuating the numbers because it showed that things in the reactor are always changing, they are never constant. This also means that things could change drastically very fast, so it needs to be constantly watched in order to keep order and safety within the plant and for the safety of the workers.

I cannot imagine working in an environment like that either, i mean if the nuclear reactors explodes, you are the first one who dies. its an extremely dangerous job. I admire those who work directly with the reactor and the contamination that comes with it and the possible sickness and potential death that could come with it.

This experiment was interesting because we got to experiment with lights. We used a little what looked like a mini solar panel energy source to see what the light did to it, then we put color gels infront of the light to see if the color changed anything. Over all the energy levels stayed the same throughout each experiment, no matter how close or far away the light was from the energy source and also the color levels didnt change either, although light green showed a high energy level compared to the dark green and the purple gels.

I think there could have been a better experiment to portray this certain class topic and also there could have been a more efficient way of going about it because the light was very moveable so how far away i placed the lights from the panel was very broad with every light power as well as with the gels considering we had to hold the gels at the light without moving at all to get an accurate reading.

We did an experiment this week that had to do with power, weight, rotation and work. It was very cool, we used a pully system to pull up different amounts of wieght to see how things changed. When we decreased the amount of weight we used, the number of rotations increased because the pully pulled the weight up faster, the power remained the same but because of that reason, the pully went faster with each weight ring we took off.

The one thing that i think could have messed up our data a bit was having to stop the pully at the same spot everytime because that was very diffucult and that is what could have made the rotation readings very off.

The chart shows that the acceleration increases with the decrease of the weight. The power remains the same however the battery discharge is nowhere recordable in any sort of pattern so that got me confused a bit.

Demand is basically spending money but being willing to spend it which is extremely tough lately because of the economy. I read:

“Elements of the Law of Demand As Melvin and Boyes note the law of demand is defined as:

1. The quantity of a well-defined good or service that:
2. People are willing and able to buy.
3. During a particular period of time.
4. Decreases/increases as the price of that good or service rises/falls
5. All other factors remain constant.”

Demand is confusing for most people and for me before doing some research, i was also confused on exactly what is it, it’s not just how many boxes of cereal you buy or 20 shares of apple, it is basically all possible prices ever for that particular thing.

A big part of Economic demand is the demand curve. Ive learned that the demand curve is the time period of which the products prices are flucuated.  Also the law of demand is a big part of it as well, “The most famous law in economics, and the one economists are most sure of, is the law of demand. On this law is built almost the whole edifice of economics. The law of demand states that when the price of a good rises, the amount demanded falls, and when the price falls, the amount demanded rises.”

I think gas prices are the best way to describe the process of demand because no matter if the prices goes up or down we still need gas so we are going to pay for it. However, we will most likely cut back, maybe not drive as much or think about where we need to go and only go to those places in order to not spend as much on gas. Although people cut down, they dont cut it out of their lives. Thats how people still make money on their products even when the prices go up but thats also why peoples buisnesses can fail. Restaurants probably take a huge hit because when the economy is bad people cut back on eating out and start to make thier own food because its cheaper, so some things fail and some things just stay the same.

http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Demand.html 

http://economics.about.com/od/demand/p/demand.htm

In this case, it was no just an epidemic, it was a pandemic which means it was global and travels worldwide. This movie was crazy. I am already a hypochondriac so while watching the movie and definitely after the movie, i couldnt touch anything or anyone. If i heard someone sneeze or cough or saw someone shakes hands with someone or kiss someone i cringed. That movie was very realistic and well made because it made it seem like it could really happen and i believe that something like that could actually happen.   

There were a lot of big names in this movie and i think what made the beginning of the movie so powerful was that they killed off one of the big named actors in the first 20 minutes, Gwenyth Paltrow. I believe my experience with the movie was also different than anyone else that went to see it because i went to see this movie by myself and although i have gone to movies by myself before, it was extremely disturbing sitting there alone during this movie. Everytime someone coughed, moves, itched their arm, rubbed their eye, I jerked toward them as if they were spreading a disease at that exact moment.

I do believe an epidemic like this could happen however I also believe that people do not have the correct information. For example people think that eating red meat is horrible because they could potentially catch a disease HOWEVER if its good quality, the pinker the meat, the better for you. When they cook it well done, they cook all the nutrients out of it and only leave the fats and bad things about it so by trying to be healthy they are actually be less healthy.

Another example is that people refuse to touch lets say a railing because “everyone” has touched it so its “probably” full of diseases and grime. But what people don’t know is that dryer sheets you stick in with your clothes in the dryer are one of the most toxic things EVER for you and you can sincerely die from those.

Another example is that people think that “fat free” things and “no sugar” things and “low-carb/low Calorie” and “diet” things are better for you than the regular things but they are 10 times worse for you becuase they replace the real sugars with fake sugars and what would be sugar with rat poison and things that get in your blood and kill you. What people don not know is that real sugars are not bad for you, yes they might make you fatter but they are extremely healthy is comparison to things with the no sugar label on them.

It amazes me that people will cover their mouth when they sneeze but they won’t read the labels on things they are putting into thier bodies.

I also think its crazy to think that there are certain people like matt damon in the movie that cannot be affected by diseases like this because of something in their blood. What makes certain people immune to such a horrific contagious thing? Its crazy that all it took was a single bat and pig to cause all of this. The one thing i don’t understand is why didnt the big get infected by this, was it just the human connection that made the disease possible? so, if no one had ever touched the pig then no one would have gotten this disease? or was there something wrong with the bat or pig in the first place.

I do believe that there has to be a lot of things factoring into one situation for something like this to happen. I remember when H1N1 was the huge deal and the people got the shot and they started dying from the vaxination. It was crazy! but i was confident because believe it or not i have NEVER had a shot in my entire life. and you are probably saying to yourself  “except for the one to get into schools and the flu shot” but NO, i have NEVER had a shot in my entire life, i have never had a needle stick into my skin. I do not believe in it and you know what? i am the healthiest person i know. I got perfect attendence awards when i was younger because i never got sick or missed school. I am very proud of it and i wish i could express to everyone not to get shots, because people are just pushing shit into your bodies to prevent something that you will never get! it makes no sense but people believe them and it blows my mind!

So in Conclusion, this can happen, im not sure if it will but people will panic and those you do will be gone first. I believe in epidemics and pandemics however people (americans mostly) are too stupid to take pre cautions…like when theres a small snow storm expected everyone runs to the grocery store as if they wont be able to leave their houses for weeks, when in fact there was only 4 inches of snow and it wa cleared off by the next day.

I am a very hands on person when it comes to school so being able to build a robot that we were going to apply the equations we learned to was an easy way for me to learn.

There were three equations we had to use during this experiment, they were:

 number of wheel turns= X degrees over 360degrees/1 turn

Distance Traveled: d= (number of turns) X (circumference)

Average Velocity: v= distance (meters)/time (seconds)

we were given a chart that would calculate everything we needed when the robot actually moved however we needed to put in power and seconds first. So the first Power we put in was 75, we pressed go and the robot moved across the table and instantly gave us statistics on the three equations we needed to calculate. Although it gave us all the information my group and i decided to do all of the matt out to double check that it was right. So for the 75 power i got 4.6 for the number of turns, the distance traveled was 0.79442 and the average velocity was 0.26480667

Next we used power 50 and for each time we kept the same time which was 3 seconds; for the number of turns we got 2.92778, distance traveled was 0.505627 and average velocity was 0.168542

the 3rd time we took statistics was for power being 25, number of wheel turns was 1.16667, distance traveled was 0.201483 and average velocity was 0.067161

i realize that its a lot of numbers i just threw at you however was i learned from this was that the lesser the amount of power, the lesser the number of wheel turns. Also, the distance traveled is less too because if you dont have as many wheel turns, the robot will travel a shorter distance. Finally, the velocity decreases as well because the lesser the power the lesser the velocity(it will travel at a slower speed).

I love doing hands on activites because it allows me to see exactly how things work and how to calculate things. I wish we could have done more things with the robots like maybe to see how far it traveled in comparison to another robot or perhaps from one wall of the room to the other or in a circle etc.

The Disaster following the earthquake and tsunami was horrible and devastating. This is the largest japanese nuclear disaster since 1986 but some people are saying that is was actually worse than that. When the earthquake hit, there were 2 reactors that were in “shutdown mode”.  After the earthquake, the other reactors automatically shutdown and were being cooled down by waterpumps however the tsumai hit and the plant was flooded in almsot 50 feet of water which made the pumps shutdown and caused the plant to start to overheat. After all of that, there came more disaster, reactors 1-3 went through a complete “meltdown”. People by this time don’t know what to do.

All I can think about are the people working to try to keep this reactor from exploading because they are very close to death, there would be absolutely no way to escape from the explosion, those men and women are extremely brave.

here is a video:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/why-the-fukushima-disaster-is-worse-than-chernobyl-2345542.html

As of now Tamil Nadu Jayalalithaa Chief Minister is telling the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh to stop the project of keeping the nuclear power plant safe which i believe to be completely outrageous because an explosion like that is not just a bad wind storm, it is death in the form of an explosion. the Chief Minister says that he still believes that the pre cautions taken after the disaster to maintain the plant are not ill intentioned however it seems unnecesary to continue with this when there is no longer a further threat or harm. The people need power and they need this energy source. so what is being said is that is needs to be taken into consideration the thought or making another source of energy or in my opinion a completely new power plant.

There was no reason to think that this power plant was going to breakdown at any point so there was no pre cautions to take so this was a freak accident that could not have been prevented.

In my opinion, im glad we are going to see the movie and not going to the nuclear reactor because although they are completely safe until they’re not…its still outrageously nerveraking to think about entering something that could potentially in seconds destroy hundreds of lives.