Today is February 1, and this day marks a year since I began this Weblog, in a time of winter and trigonometric dreariness. Here I am in winter again, but trigonometry has turned into vectors (where it belongs) and I am finally accelerating for real. I did 20 physics problems about vectors and acceleration, both in straight lines and circles. I'll do the remaining 3 in the set soon. Not only did I do these problems, but I got them right, for the most part. The ones I got wrong were due to inattention in copying the given data or carrying out an algebraic operation. (It's harder to do math when I'm listening to music at the same time, which may interest neuroscientific types.) Much of this beginning physics depends on memorized formulas and plugging numbers in, which is not very creative and probably not proper educational protocol, but it beats re-deriving the thing from scratch each time. Here's a sample problem, number 19:

19. A car will skid if its acceleration, as it makes a turn, is more than 3.5 m/s². If the car is traveling at 20 m/s, what is the radius of the smallest circle it can travel in without skidding?

It turns out (so to speak) to be about 114 meters. Except if you are driving in my current conditions, in which case you are driving on ice and you have no guarantee you won't skid at any speed.

I have also finished "Project 911." It has been difficult, as usual, to push thick, sticky paint around highly precise geometric areas. I could have done this on the computer, sure, but it just wouldn't be the same, wouldn't have texture or special effects or weight or reflectivity or frame-ability. I'm still devoted to good old archaic painting by hand. When I have done the final touches and varnished the thing, I will photograph it and put it up here for all of you to see.

There is nothing like finishing a painting, AND solving a lot of physics problems correctly, to boost my confidence. I know that I am still at the most basic level, a kindergarten reader as it were. Those of us of a certain age, or even older, for Ghod's sake, will remember the famous children's first readers with "Dick and Jane." There is a fascinating and entertaining book about these readers, called "Growing Up With Dick and Jane" by Carole Kismaric and Marvin Heiferman. The original printings of these books are now collectors' items. Though they have been parodied and mocked, they are still remembered fondly and they remain in print. Some of us will recognize the ultra-simple texts that helped youngsters learn to read. Well, since I am at the "Dick and Jane" stage of learning physics, I will offer my own version of the classic text.

"Look up, Pyracantha.
You can see something.
It is Physics. It is Electron Blue.
It can go up, up, up.
It can go away."
Pyracantha said, "I want to go up.
I want to go up in it.
I want to go up, up, up.
I want to go up and away."

Posted at 3:16 am | link