Search Results for “physics”
Projectile High Point
Press the play button to fire a projectile in the direction of the arrow. Move the arrow and try again. Notice the high points of the trajectory lie on an ellipse. If the initial velocity of the projectile is v, and gravity is g, what is the equation of the ellipse?
Falling faster than gravity
A uniform bar AB is hinged at A and tips over under the influence of gravity. Press the play button to watch and compare with mass D which falls freely. Under some starting conditions, B actually falls faster than D. You can experiment by pressing refresh, dragging B and D to new locations, then pressing Play again.
Maximum Area Triangle
The app uses a physical model to find the largest area triangle whose vertices lie on a smooth closed curve (defined by the red control points). The triangle defined by the tangent lines at the vertices is displayed, along with its medians. What do you notice about the maximum?
Inverted Pendulum
An inverted pendulum is in unstable equilibrium.. left to itself, it will topple out of equilibrium. However, if you apply a vibration with a suitably high frequency to the base of the pendulum, you can stabilize it. Try it here. ω is proportional to the frequency. A value of 1 does not stabilize the pendulum. What value does? This is one of the 77 physical paradoxes in Mark Levi’s book Why Cats Land on their Feet.
5 bar toy variable radius
The physical pattern drawing toy has a fixed gear ratio of 6:1, giving hexagonal symmetry to the drawings. In software it is easy to make the gear ratio variable. Press the radius button to change the radius of the turntable
Mechanical Location of the Fermat Toricelli Point
The Fermat Toricelli Point minimizes the sum of the distances to the vertices of a triangle. This app simulates a physical method for finding the point. Press Hint to see a geometric method.
Conveyor Belt*
This app explores a physical motion problem and its connection to trigonometric functions. (F-TF 5)
