Bowling Balls Beside Bugattis

After yesterday's break, it was class again today. We started off the day with a quick example of what the index of refraction really means. The index of refraction is the relative speeds of light. Our teacher first placed a beaker in another beaker, both filled with water. We could see the outline of the inner beaker, because it was distorted. He then did the same thing, except instead of water, he poured in corn oil. Since corn oil and pyrex have very similar indices of refraction, the inner beaker nearly disappeared. Next on the agenda: waves. He used a machine with a bunch of rods connected by  a wire as an example. He also talked about sound waves. He used a pipe system with two holes in it, to illustrate how waves can interfere constructively or destructively. He gave a fair amount of lecture about this. We next started a lab to examine these properties, but we ran out of time. We had some lunch.

Next up: the field trip. We went to the Simeone Automotive Museum. It was filled with expensive cars, so we decided to roll bowling balls around. We had extremely low quality brooms, and we had to hit the bowling balls with the brooms to change direction. We had to guide the bowling balls through a variety of setups. We had to go along a straight line and back. The key was slowing down. The bowling balls have a fair amount of mass, so it is hard to slow them down. We also had to guide the bowling balls in a circle, then a parabola. Finally, we got to have a race. Each team competed with the others to guide the ball along a curvy track. It worked like a relay race; each person in the team did a lap, then the next person took over. I thought that this was a great way to demonstrate how inertia works. It really helped to feel how changing the bowling ball mass changed how hard it was to control. This demonstration gave a more intuitive understanding of how inertia works.

We then explored the car museum. It contained many street legal racing cars, from pre-WW1 to about 1970. I really liked seeing how the cars changed over time. You could practically see how the car makers learned more and more about aerodynamics. Safety technology also improved. Slowly, seat belts appeared. Tires went from being smooth to having "no skid" printed on them, and from there to having actual tread. Cars became sleeker. They became more efficient. The museum was really fascinating because how it demonstrated how car technology progressed. I also like that you were able to get extremely close to the cars.

The Ferrari 250 GTO. This is the second ever made, with a great racing history. Worth millions of dollars.

After I got back to the car museum, I had dinner. We then went to a movie. I decided to go to The Lone Ranger. I thought that it was decent. All in all, it was a packed day.