2) I find Havel’s writing a bit sanctimonious. He refers to “we” as if the entire world functions the way he describes, as if no spiritual development is occurring because of the encroachment of western culture. Yet there are many places in the world completely foreign to post-enlightenment scientific discovery. He almost seems to want western culture to bend all of it’s efforts to deducing the soul, which I think is not the right idea.

If I were to fully accept all of what Havel says, it would be pretty depressing because the foundations of our civilization is deeply flawed and needs to be completely deconstructed. Yet I do not think that a spiritual outlook is necessarily incompatible with modern society. I think it is entirely possible for a “scientist” to be aware of things larger than that which he studies and observes. He really does not give people enough credit.

Humans have made extraordinary advances in “technology” such that I can be transferring information through a medium which is not able to be directly sensed by humans. Essentially through magic. It seems that from the President of the Czech Republic’s view, science is concerned chiefly with how and not nearly enough with why. Or at least the deeper Why.  Why did it come to be that multicellular organisms were evolved enough to comprehend and be able to ask these questions.

I sit in a room filled completely with man made products save for the small orchid in a vase, and as such I have become completely self-centered (at least species centered) in my view of the world. Everything I see has a history of development and production, and as such, I think of these things as central to my existence and possible future. If I were to study computer science, I would be studying something completely contrived. There is no binary code in nature. This scares me now that I think about it.

Yet this is what we have been taught. To be good at completely contrived things like spelling, taking derivatives, etc. and have learned to enjoy it. Our sealed off sphere of experience has ensured that the greatest success a human can attain is to be fabulously wealthy. But money is a completely contrived concept. What currency exists on the universal or even earthly scale?

When humans are born, they come into the world naked.

When they die they take nothing with them.

So why then are we so focused on these contrived concepts. I believe the explanation lies in our brain.

Our minds like to create patterns, this is something I learned from the Exploratoreum, and I do not think that this is just the result of the culture on my thinking. As such, the more complex our understanding of the pattern, the more likely it is to be right.

Science is just the brain taking in more and more patterns that it can apply.

It’s really amazing, but it seems we are reaching the point where we are getting diminishing returns from the complexity of our patterns. No matter how complex our patterns, the universe is essentially uncertain. Our minds in their current state that they cannot handle this fact.

So what then? give up? proceed on our current path in the darkness?

no

I believe Charles Darwin and his idea that a species faced with a changing environment can either adapt or perish. I think that our minds are sufficiently advanced that we can undergo an intellectual evolution, whereby our way of understanding the world will shift dramatically. Some old ways will die, but the new ones will prosper in wondrous ways.

I  can hardly wait.

Earth does this because of it’s geospheric shape( a bit redundant maybe?) The gravitational force of sun(and apparently moon?) “favors” this greater concentration of mass and tries to keep it in the orbital plane. This gravitational force along with the angular momentum of the earth spinning perpendicularly to this force causes precessions for some weird reason.

Oh wait I get it. The torque from gravity is pulling it perpendicular to the torque from the angular momentum, causing precession in that direction.

The equations are flawed, which presents some problems.

Infinity always gives us problems.

The equations are not an adequate model for finding the speed of the asteroid because they do not account for the fact that at distance infinity, gravity is really weak, infinitesimally so.

So who wins?

What we want to happen is to have the lowest intensity of force possible applied to the egg. There are two ways to do this.(best would be to combine these two.

1. Decrease the initial speed. This will lower the change in momentum and thus the impulse.

2. Increase the duration of the force. For a given impulse, if we increase the duration that the force is applied and I=∑F∆t, then ∑F will be lower.

#2 is a bit more fuzzy for me. The impulse is still the same, but if we extend the time and ∑F is a constant net force, then ∑F will have to be greater for a lower ∆t. For variable net forces, the maximum F value will be smaller, I assume.

a)

F=ma

m=m1+m2

a=F/(m1+m2)

b)

Contact Force = ma

m=m2 (we want to find the acceleration that the second block feels in response to the force from the first)

a=F/(m1+m2) from part a

and F is the same so

(F•m2)/(m1+m2)= Contact force

2.

Net force in terms of m1

F= T-m1g = m1a

in terms of m2

F = m2g-T = m2a

Combined force is the same as the sum of the mass times accelerations

-m1g+m2g = m1a + m2a

isolate for acceleration

a = (m2-m1)g/(m1+m2)

The tension in the string can be found by plugging this into the first equation, because t is positive here in the terms we’ve defined(makes life easier)

F=T=m1g +m1a = m1(g+a)

m1(g+g(m2-m1)/(m1+m2))

m1g(1+(m2-m1)/(m1+m2))

=(2)gm2m1/(m1+m2)

a)Gravity pulling ball down, hand pushing ball up.

b) In freefall, the only force acting is gravity. The ball pulls on the earth in response?

5. Shake shake shake it like a polaroid picture! This method depends on law number one, that those water droplets, once moving, don’t want to stop, so they keep going, flying through the air to meet their eventual demise on the bathroom floor.

10.

a)it must, by holding the ball, she is resisting the force of gravity, by tossing it upwards, she exceeds this force. The ball moves upwards when it does.

b) Holding the ball is a force, throwing it implies putting more energy than it takes to hold it, so no, it cannot equal the force of gravity.

c.) This question is badly worded. What does “what strength” mean? Physical strength? Amount of acceleration?

d)Law numero uno once again. The child, by throwing, is accelerating the ball to a velocity, when the hand stops, the ball, having inertia, keeps going but slows and then returns under the influence of gravity.

d.) Law number one,

1. Inertia: Objects in motion tend to stay in motion, objects at rest tend to stay at rest. Velocity doesn’t  change unless and outside force is introduced.

2. Force of an object equals mass of object multiplied by the acceleration of the object.

3. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Meaning force exerted by one object on another gets the the same amount of force returned to it by the other object in the opposite direction.

(This last one confuses me, if a pool ball hits a wall, and it gets an equal and opposite force, why doesn’t it stop?)

Free body diagram: a popular alternative to the paid body diagram, popularized by DaVinci.

In physics, it refers to a drawn diagram which illustrates all of the forces acting on an object(modeled as a particle) in order to determine the net force.