Climate Change

Climate Change and the Evidence behind It

By Logan Yenser

    Although the topic of global warming has been talked about for decades now, it seems that only recently that the topic of global warming has been a major topic of discussion. People like Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and activist Greta Thurnberg have been the among the people at the forefront of the discussion, calling for a change in the current climate change policy. But what evidence is there for climate change? There is plenty of evidence that supports the fact that climate change is very much a real thing, with 97% of climate scientists agreeing that climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities. Some of the evidence that supports climate change is a global temperature rise, warming oceans, and shrinking ice sheets. In this blog post, we are going to focus on the global temperature
    According to NASA, the latest annual average temperature anomaly (in 2018) was 0.8 degrees celsius, which is 33.44 degrees fahrenheit. The graph below illustrates the change in global surface temperature relative to 1951-1980 average temperatures. 18 of the 19 warmest years all have occurred since 2001, with 2016 ranking as the warmest on record. This research is broadly consistent with similar constructions prepared by the Climatic Research Unit and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Also, the time series included in the link below shows the five-year average variation of global surface temperatures. Dark blue indicates areas cooler than average, and dark red indicates areas warmer than average.

   

SOURCE: https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/

Apollo 13: What is Weightlessness?

Weightlessness and How it Applies to Apollo 13

     Weight is defined as a body's relative mass or the quantity of matter contained by it, giving rise to a downward force. So when you look at the word weightlessness, it implies that there is a lack of gravity. This is impossible, because in order to get a lack of gravity, you need to get infinitely far away from any other object, as per the formula for the force of gravity, which is:

g= G * ((m1*m2)/(r^2)).

Before we proceed into what exactly weightlessness is, we better define weight in terms of forces.

Weight is not actually the force of gravity but actually the force normal to the force of gravity. The normal force is a contact force from the object one object is contacting, equal and opposite to the applied force. 

When talking about weightlessness, one must also mention orbital motion and "Zero-G." How do things stay in orbit when there is clearly only one force.

There is a velocity tangent to the orbit path and perpendicular to the acceleration. So long as the velocity is large enough proportionally to the acceleration, the object will continue orbiting in free-fall--as there is a net force implied by the acceleration. In essence, the object is "falling infinitely," or "falling around the object it is orbiting." And by virtue of it being in free fall, there is no normal force and as such there is weightlessness.

Overall, I would give the movie a GP, as director Ron Howard wanted the movie to be authentic in terms of the weightlessness.

Avengers: Infinity War

How Newton's Laws Don't Seem to Matter.

When watching Avengers: Infinity War, one can't help but marvel at the technological advancements that have been made in cinema since its beginnings. The movie is visually gorgeous, taking the viewer on a blockbuster whirlwind of visual appeal. Avengers: Infinity War ably juggles a dizzying array of MCU heroes in the fight against their gravest threat yet, and the result is a thrilling, emotionally resonant blockbuster that (mostly) realizes its gargantuan ambitions. However, since this is a Physics in Film class and not a film critique class, we are going to focus on the fact that Newton's Laws of Motion are disregarded in the film in not one, but multiple scenes.

In the first scene that we are going to analyze happens in the beginning of the movie when Bruce Banner goes flying into Dr. Strange's house and crashes into the stairs. If the scene were to be faithful to Newton's first law of motion, then the ground would have been destroyed, thus violating Newton's third law of motion.

Another scene that violates Newton's laws of motion is when Doctor Strange floats up in the air. This is a clear violation of the first law of motion, because Newton's first law of motion states that an object in motion will stay in motion unless a force acts upon it. Doctor Strange starts to float in the air, and then he just stops. It doesn't appear that a force is acting upon him, and yet he just stops.

Lastly, there is a scene where Thor had to get artificial rings around a neutron star so he could get a new axe. Thor started swinging the raccoon so fast that his inertia and energy in his momentum transferred to the rings. This is a problem because the rings presumably weigh a lot, and that raccoon probably weighs less than 20 lbs.