America's Cup Velocity Made Good: Vectors!

America's Cup Apparent Wind: Vectors



Fresh to Frightening Crash Moments:



Superyacht Regatta:

Introduction: If you've been following the America's Cup races from San Francisco you've probably heard the announcers refer to VMG - velocity made good. This is a sailing term referring to the velocity of the boat towards a target (the component of the boat speed toward the target). Since the sailboats cannot sail directly toward their target they must try to optimize their speed, which does not necessarily mean the boat speed is as high as it could be for the conditions. The tacticians on the boats are constantly assessing wind and current conditions, course boundaries, and their opponents location to keep the boats heading toward the mark at the highest VMG - a very dynamic proposition! This is a video explainer of the concept that illustrates this practical application of vectors. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84hwn8gPxNc If you have not been following the races, check out some of the videos online. These boats are amazingly quick and watching 13+ tons of sailboat riding on a hydrofoil the size of a surfboard at 45+ mph is exciting.

"Romancing The Wind" - Ray Bethell

LADEE Launches!

LADEE, the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer robotic probe launched Friday night atop an Orbital Sciences Corporation Minotaur V rocket. The first deep space mission from Wallops Flight Facility, LADEE will orbit the moon to collect information about its atmosphere and environmental influences on lunar dust.

Data from LADEE will help scientists better understand other planetary bodies in our solar system.




NASA: 'The nighttime launch of NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft is currently scheduled for Friday at 11:27 p.m. EDT (0327 Sept. 7 GMT). The mission will lift off from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va., and you can watch its flight thanks to smartphone apps, viewing maps and several agency-sponsored special events.'"

In correspondence with NASA's Glenn Facility, I wrote this this morning:
"I enjoyed the launch from Miami watching the live feed and listening to the NASA radio broadcast on my Android as i sat in the field not too far from home.

Slight haze and no visual took me home where I gathered Lat and long and Ladee altitude data from the NASA Live feed and fed them into my spreadsheet which told me why I saw nothing (and taught me a "non-euclidean" lesson):

LADEE never "broke" through my horizon altitude, always below (and increasingly below with increasing distance). See the image at http://shawnbeightol.com/ladeeprofile.jpg or at very bottom of interactive launch spreadsheet found at www.tinyurl.com/rocketalt ."

Common Physics Misconceptions

How Far Is a Second?:



How to Weigh a Million Dollars:



The Hairy Ball Theorem:



Physics, Football, Symmetry:



Immovable Object vs. Unstoppable Force?:
Newton's Second Law, Inertia, Acceleration:



The Order of Operations:



Is It Better To Walk or Run in the Rain How To Break the Speed of Light:


There is No Fourth Dimension:



Proof Without Words, The Circle:



Round Triangles:






The Tides:



If The Moon Were Replaced By Some of Our Planets:

IV Physics Introductions 2013

USGA Golf Ball Slow Motion:40,000 FPS 150 mph


Big Bang Theory:
Walk Up A Wall?:

Jerome Simpson Flip Touchdown 2012:



2012 with Neil DeGrasse Tyson:




Twitter Earthquake Video:


From Rhett Allain: And that is it. Let me put in the following values:
•vs = 7.3 km/s.
•vt = 200 km/s. (yes, I had several values for this but this is the one I am going with)
•tt = 30 seconds.
With these values, I get a distance of about 230 km. So if you are farther than 230 km from the center of the earthquake, you might be able to get a tweet about the earthquake before you feel it.




Unbelievable Waterslide Compositing Walkthrough





Mythbusters Walking on Water/Oobleck



Liquid Mountaineering:

Physics of Awesome People:
Swimmer Stack: Eagle Picks Up Child: Classic Frames of Refernce:



"Scientific Notation Explained!":



"Scientific Notation: Example":



"How Far Away is The Moon?":









Veritasium: "Atomic Theory or Hypothesis":

2013 Tesla Model S | Frontal Crash Test by NHTSA | CrashNet1

Ford Escape 2013 Model: