Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Can Humans Be Magnets?


I was watching TV the other day and this old man attracted metal to his body. Can humans be magnets? Of course not, but they did not tell us what the cause was of this man's unique ability till the end of the segment. The reason was that he had very smooth skin and he could produce a lot of static electricity. When the metal came into contact with his body it would create a vacuum, so the metal would stick, and not want to come off. But at first, this man deffinitely made me think that he was a magnet! :) But anyways this deals with physics because of the magnetic part. Magnets are things or objects that have a magnetic field and exerts a magnetic force. They have two poles; a north and a south pole. Like poles repel each other, while opposite poles are attracted to each other. When these poles either repel or attract each other they are creating a magnetic field without even touching each other. Unfortunately the man was not magnetic but he's the closest human to being a magnet. ..forgot to mention, his three grandson's have the same ability. (they think the trait skips a generation.)

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Electromagnetic Spectrum


The other week my softball team had a team bonding. Part of the team bonding we had a little scavanger hunt where we took pictures with random things and people. I think one of the pictures we had to get was with a rainbow. I realized that the colors found in the rainbow are part of physics because it is part of the electromagnetic spectrum. This spectrum is types of electromagnetic radiation organized by it frequency or wavelength, which each have their own electric and magnetic field. In the spectrum, it includes radio waves, infared, UV, x-rays, gamma rays, and visible light. The visible light is what consists of the rainbow because visible light includes all the colors and white. In the electromagnetic spectrum, as you move to the right of the chart, the frequency of the wave increases as the wavelength decreases. Meaning that the frequency and wavelength vary inversely.