Physics on trip

PHYSICS DURING MY TRIP
Only on my trip for one and a half days, I noticed a lot of physics! Just at the airport I noticed the physics of the airplane and the metal detector. As I was going through TSA I saw the metal detector and immediately remembered the facts I learned about magnetism. One of the equations I learned from my magnetism chapter was that F=qvBsintheta. The factors that influence the amount of magnetic force of a positive charge in a magnetic field (right hand rule number one) is velocity. The speed of an electron is directly proportional to the force. The faster the electron moves, the stronger the force. In relation to the metal detector, when you are wearing something magnetic while walking under the machine, the faster you walk through it, the easier it is to detect your metal object. It is better to walk slowly through the magnetic detector, if you don't wish to be caught.

At the at airport I was sitting near the window and thought about the physics of an airplane. What is so cool about understanding how an airplane is able to fly is that you have to know all of Newton's three laws. To review, the first law is every object remains at rest unless acted upon by an external force. In order for the airplane to fly you need horizontal and vertical motion. So for the airplane to move horizontally, there must be more "thrust" than "drag". For the airplane to move vertically, the lift must be more than the mg (weight) of the plane. The second law is F=ma. This equation defines the amount of force produced by lift needed to overcome the effects of gravity. Newton's third law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This is why airplanes need wings. Depending on the angle of the wing, the airplane can have more lift from the air. So the wing pushes downward on the air, while the air pushes equally as hard upward. Even though there are other principles and science explanations of how an airplane flies, based on the physics that I have learned so far, this is how I perceive the physics of a plane.