I have rolled the rock up the hill again, and finished my current series of problems in what I now know is called statics. I have analyzed the vertical and horizontal components of tension in cords and hanging blocks, sliding blocks, and objects pressed against the wall, along with the co-efficients of friction, which impedes motion. Many of those diagrams of multiple cords attached to weights in equilibrium reminded me of the classic humor-engineering cartoons of Rube Goldberg. Just add more and more levels of static and dynamic design, and you, too, can calculate how much force you need to fill a cup of water in 20 steps or more.

But I don't need to go anywhere far-fetched to find examples of the situations I've been working on. My work environment at the gourmet store is filled with signs and other weights hanging on just these types of angled cords and chains, as well as things held up against a wall. Gravity, support, pushing, pulling, and friction are everywhere. It's not just about brie cheese and endives and frozen jumbo shrimp. Every so often I have conversations with certain scientific or engineering-minded customers who know about my "secret vice." That was how I learned that I had been doing "statics," a word I had not heard before in the context of physics.

So I solved, and solved, and got my sines and cosines in the right directions. Sisyphus truly must have been a physicist in his own mythical time. I don't know whether I will remember all of this, but I think that if I remember to get the correct vertical and horizontal numbers first, then some of it will come back to me when I am hanging that sine, or rather sign. But the only rolling rock I can really appreciate is this one.

Now it's back to moving objects, Newton's laws, and a whole load of stuff about momentum. Much of this I have done before, so maybe the review won't take so long. But I don't count on it. Oops, there goes the rock down the hill again.

Posted at 3:33 am | link