The Banksian Sphere (BS)-Your ultimate source for BS physics: Non Newtonian Physics of the Den's pool table

Introduction

If you didn't already know, my house has a name and it's called The Den. If you've ever played pool at the Den, you know that the pool table will curve the balls in the most unexpected ways. Some would hypothesize that the table isn't level or that it's deformed in some way. Others would guess that the bent cues force us to put strange spins on the balls that cause them to swerve back and forth unpredictably.

Sorry folks, regular physics doesn't work at the Den

All of these guesses may be very well thought out, scientific reasons, but they all make the same assumption: That Newton's laws of motion apply on our pool table. I claim that this is a faulty assumption. With the best of today's rulers, we have confirmed that the table is, in fact, level within a uncertainty of 1 inch. We have also performed thorough tests on the perfectly level street next to our house to confirm that the bent cues only curve the balls slightly in comparison to the curvature that is found on the Den's pool table.

Why it's so hard to not slide off a rotating ice rink

Since the first two hypotheses have been proven false, we must move on to a new theory. Imagine you were on a rotating ice rink. You can imagine that you'd have some difficulty staying on the rink because the apparent centrifugal force. Your body would be forced to move in an unnatural way because you would be in a rotating reference frame. If you by chance figured out how to stand up on the rotating ice rink long enough to hit a hockey puck toward the center of the rink, you would notice something interesting. The puck would curve to the left or right depending on the rink's direction of rotation. If the rink was rotating fast enough, you'd see the puck loop around a couple times before shooting off the side of the rink.

That was an incredibly satisfying tangent, but has nothing to do with my theory. My hypothesis is that there is some invisible force in the center of the pool table, causing the curvature of moving pool balls. It will be my attempt to convince you that this is possible if and only if (IFF) there is a black hole at the middle of the Den pool table.

Gravitational lensing and why black holes are like bifocals

Black holes cause gravitational lensing when something (matter or light) passes near the black hole. We see this on the large scale all the time with light from distant galaxies and we see a similar effect when a meteor passes near a planet, which changes the trajectory. This happens because the planet is incredibly massive and as we all know, two things with mass attract each other (and some like to say that every one in the world is attracted to them for this reason). We don't see this bending of trajectories on the small scale because things are just too light. We did a calculation in Intermediate Mechanics and figured out that it would take lots of years for two billiard balls to attract each other to the point of touching.

Conclusion

Since we've seen the effect of gravitational lensing on the small scale in short amounts of time (on the order of 1 second), I have concluded that there must be an extremely massive, yet very small, black hole in the middle of the pool table. Kudos to whoever can figure out exactly how the black hole causes the balls to jump off the table so frequently.

Acknowledgements: Much thanks to Nathan Jorgensen (AKA Jorgie) as he was my inspiration for this theory as well as the rest of the Denninites (old and new) who have played pool on the table and demonstrated it's ridiculous laws of motion. We apologize to anyone who was been pegged by a ball that mysteriously ejected off of the table during the experiments as well as the countless guests who lost a game because they didn't account for the gravitational lensing effect.

References:

D.A.B. Psycadelic theories on quantum gravity. IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronucleicnewtonianbosonic Theory 6 (2000) 1312.

S. Lardenois, D. Pascal, L. Vivien, E. Cassan, S. Laval, R. Orobtchouk, M. Heitzmann, N. Bouaida, Idiot's guide to gravitational lensing. Forum entries from answers.yahoo.com 28 (2003) 1150.

K.K. Lee, D.R. Lim, L.C. Kimerling, How to use lasers to cook your dinner. Dear John Optics Letters 26, vol. 23, pp. 1888-1890, 2001.

F. Grillot, L. Vivien, S. Laval, D. Pascal, E. Cassan, Philosophical physics. IEEE Phot. Techn. Lett. 16 (7) (2004) 1661.

E. Cassan, S. Laval, S. Lardenois, A. Koster, Quantum electrodynamics for kids. Journal of Baby Einstein 9 (2003) 460.

L. Vivien, S. Laval, B. Dumont, S. Lardenois, A. Koster, E. Cassan, Physics is legitimate, I promise! IEEE Journal of Quantum Silliness 210 (2002) 43.

Small Print: Don't believe anything above this sentence since it was completely made up and was extremely unscientific.

Getting Hit by a Car...last year

I was reading through some documents that I wrote in the past and I came across this one that I wrote on October 21, 2008. I thought it was an interesting read so here it is:

It is a humbling experience when you get run into by a car while you are riding a scooter. Last night I was coming home from writing a paper at school and I ran right through a stop sign without slowing down. I saw a car coming from the left and the only thing I was thinking was, I hope I can get across the street before that car, because it as too late to stop. Typically I will slow down for that stop sign but not stop. This time I wanted to just fly through it because the next section is really fun if you go fast. I even thought that I could hear a car but thought that it couldn’t be because I didn’t see the light from the headlights.

Time seemed to slow down as soon as I saw that car coming towards me. I have heard that in stressful times, your brain will go at faster rate, making it seem like everything is going slower.

It was soo stupid of me to do that. I ran that stop sign just for fun and I was not being careful at all. The car hit me and pushed me to the right for about 5-7 feet. My body started falling towards the ground as the car continued to push me and I started going under it. Thank the Lord that the car stopped right before my body went under the tires. I was wedged as far back in the car as I could without being under the tires.

Immediately, the driver came running out of the car asking me if I was ok. As she asked me questions I pulled my body out from under the car. I had trouble responding to her. I could only get 2 or 3 words out at a time. I don’t fully understand why I couldn’t talk but I guess it had something to do with the shock. The driver kept asking me questions about how I felt, if I could talk, etc. Some people who lived in a house nearby came out to help. The blonde lady gave me water in a jar and the man called 911. I did not want him to call because I didn’t want to make a huge deal out of it. I wasn’t hurt that bad and I though I might be able to walk away from it.

In what seemed like 15 seconds the police arrived. There were 2 or 3 police cars and they immediately came up to me and started asking questions. The dark skinned lady asked me my name, where I live, my phone number, and if I could remember what happened. I answered all her questions and I was quite proud that I could answer everything without trouble. My body started shaking uncontrollably. The paramedic later told me that it was because I was scared, it was cold outside, and the pavement was sucking the heat from me.

In what seemed like another 30 seconds, the paramedics arrived. They immediately took over the situation. I asked if it was ok for me to stand up but they told me to wait till the buggy came over. I stood up with the help of the man paramedic and sat in the buggy. They pushed me into the ambulance. Inside there, he checked my whole body making sure nothing was broken. The girl paramedic took my blood pressure and pulse. My pulse was 83 or something like that. Once again I felt proud that all my stats were so good. They patched my cuts which I had on my head, hands, hip and knee. The man asked me if I wanted to go to the hospital with them. I told them no because I didn’t want to spend an arm and a leg doing it. I felt healthy enough. I was mostly just sore and my cuts hurt. The police officers came and asked me a couple more questions like how fast the driver was going. I told them 15-20 mph and they kept asking me if I was sure and I told them that there was no way for me to know exactly how fast they were going. They weren’t going faster than normal.

After sitting in the ambulance for a while warming up I decided I felt well enough to leave. I got out, grabbed my broken scooter, and the man asked me if I wanted a ride. I was partially afraid they would charge me for it so I was hesitant. He told me that it was free so I went with them. They took me home and I thanked them for their help. I walked in the house, put my stuff down and took a shower. Most everyone was asleep so it was really dark inside. The shower was pretty painful, but I needed to clean my cuts so I bore the pain. After stepping out of the shower I immediately started feeling nauseous and felt like I needed to vomit. I sat down on the floor and prepared to vomit into the toilet. Nothing came out. I just sat there for a while until I started feeling better. I went into Narf’s room and told him that I just got hit by a car. I told him that I may come in asking him to take me to the hospital in case my head, neck, or back started hurting or if I started vomiting uncontrollably. I went to bed and woke up at 7 in the morning. I went to the bathroom and it was very painful for me to stand. My shins hurt and once again I started feeling nauseous so I prepared to vomit. Nothing came out again, I just got really sweaty. I went back into the living room to lie down and them I slept till 10:30. I was able to continue with the day but I skipped all my classes because it would have been too painful to walk to them. I did spend some time with God and finished a bunch of homework so it was a good day.

Improv Note Writing!!! Oh yeah!! (like anything I write isn't improv)

If you have spent a lot of time with me, you may have noticed how I say, "You know, there's a Seinfeld episode about that." There is a reason I say this phrase so much and I told Diana about it the other day at Soiree, which I'm sure she was fascinated to find out. Seinfeld has many life lessons and you can learn a lot from watching every single episode multiple times like I have.

My dad, my brother, and I are slightly obsessed with the show and frequently quote it or reference how things around us remind us of a Seinfeld episode (and it annoys my mom). Of course, there are lots of quotes that spurr from Seinfeld that are just fun to say like No Soup for You, Serinity Now, I declare this the summer of George, frolf, Hello Jerry-Hello Newman, get out!, etc. But there are all kinds of everyday situations that Seinfeld presents.

Here is my version of 25 Random Things About Me:

1. The first I want to mention is this: Have you ever had a shirt that's precious to you and you've had it for years and years? I have a t-shirt that is from a camp I went to as a freshman in high school I think and it recently got a hole in it in the wash. Believe it or not, ladies and gentlemen, but there is a Seinfeld episode about this. Jerry used to have a shirt which he named Golden Boy that was his favorite t-shirt and after many years of having the shirt, it finally died in the wash and Jerry was devistated.

2. Have you ever had the choice of standing in two lines at the theatre or a concert or something and you stood in line for a long time only to realize that you should have been in the other line to get a ticket? There is also an episode about it.

3. Have you ever had the priviledge of hanging out with old people? There's a Seinfeld episode about it.

4. Have you ever had a creeper try to talk to you while on the bus/subway? There's a Seinfeld episode about it.

5. Have you ever been frustrated with giving gifts to people on occasions that don't necessarily require gifts? There is a Seinfeld episode about it.

6. Have you ever parked in a handicapped parking spot? There's a Seinfeld episode about it.

7. Have you ever lost your car in the parking lot? There's a Seinfeld episode about it.

8. Have you ever become obsessed with a certain restaurant? There's a Seinfeld episode.

9. Here's a good one! Have you ever wondered why you get more money for recycling in michigan and wondered if it would be worth it to drive to michigan and make some good money? There's a Seinfeld episode about it.

10. Have you ever considered wearing a male bra (called the bro)? There's a Seinfeld episode about it.

11. Have you ever done exactly the opposite of everything you would naturally do? There's an episode about it.

12. Have you ever looked into a friend's medicine cabinet? There's a Seinfeld episode about it.

13. Have you ever wanted to buy something for a couple dollars but only have a $100 bill? There's a Seinfeld episode about it.

14. Have you ever had a flight where you sat next to a beautiful woman and had a great conversation the whole way (or wished that that would happen)? There's a Seinfeld episode about it.

15. Have you ever had a horrible flight where both people next to you are annoying and don't let you out to go to the bathroom? There's a Seinfeld episode about it.

16. Have you ever bought a non-refundable plane ticket, hoping that you could return it? There's a Seinfeld episode about it.

17. Have you ever had a girlfriend who does something really well for a living (like gives massages) and you try to get her to rub your shoulders, but she refuses? There's a Seinfeld episode about it.

18. Have you ever licked an envelope? There's a Seinfeld episode about it.

19. Have you ever considered changing religions for a woman? There's a Seinfeld episode about it.

20. Have you ever found a $10 bill in your pocket that you didn't know was there? There's a Seinfeld episode about it.

21. Have you ever wondered what the dentist does while you are unconsious for an operation? There's a Seinfeld episode about it.

22. Have you ever seen someone with gigantic man hands, but is a woman? There's a Seinfeld episode about it.

23. Have you ever wondered what it's like to be a hand model? There's a Seinfeld episode about it.

24. Have you ever been really excited about getting a good parking spot? There's a Seinfeld episode about it.

25. Have you ever felt under-dressed at a restaurant? There's a Seinfeld episode about it.

I think that 25 things sufficiently proves my point. I think it's wonderful how Seinfeld has so many everyday situations in it. I've considered writing a book about this and the lessons that Seinfeld teaches, but with the advent of Facebook notes I figured a note would suffice. So next time you are doing anything, just try to remember what Seinfeld episode relates to your current situation. Most likely, you will be able to think of one (assuming you've seen every episode multiple times).

Why is food soo darn good!!!!!!-Where I pose a challenge!!

This morning, I was looking at restaurants on facebook for no good reason and looked at the top restaurants in facebook. Get this, McDonalds has the #1, #3, and #4 positions. If you assume that nobody is in more than one facebook mcdonalds fan club that comes to 1,656,606 fans of McDonalds on Facebook.

I'm sure you have all seen those groups trying to get one million people to join. When I first saw one of those I figured, sure we could build a group with a million people to join, but after time i realized it's more difficult than it sounds. After seeing McDonalds on facebook I now know that it takes a ridiculous amount of time and money to be that popular.

Anyways, on to the real reason I wanted to write this note. Except for a rare few, it seems like nobody actually likes McDonalds (at least is seemed so). My friends and I always chose chipotle or subway over McDonalds unless it's too late for those places (in which case we would choose burger king over mcdonalds). Facebook has shown me that in fact people really do like McDonalds. Even though it's food is greasy, low quality, unhealthy in general, and not that great tasting.

I always thought that McDonalds was just everybody's deep dark secret. I knew that they are the biggest food company in the world so they must be getting their money from somewhere (cuz I try my darndest to avoid going there so I'm definitely not contributing).

Mmmmm grease

In my 21 years of existence I have noticed a few things about food and I shall describe it using this equation:

ArcTan(Carbs+Fat+Salt)=Happiness

This can be seen in foods such as gooey butter cakes, cookies, frosting, pizza, hamburgers, french fries, hash browns, creme brulette (sorry kalen for butchering the spelling) as well as my favorite...sugar coated butter sticks. Some people might argue that meat should be included in the equation, but I would argue that you get your happiness from the fat that is in the meat (or other flavoring) and not actually from the meat itself.

I will now explain graphically my theory relating carbs, fat, and salt to happiness. Since I don't know how to graph in 4D I'm going to simplify the equation by ignoring salt, but you can imagine that salt has a similar effect on happiness. Here is the plot relating carbs, fat and happiness:

You can see that happiness increases with increased amounts of carbs and fat. Makes sense huh? The plot does flatten out eventually, which means that Marginal Utility for eating more fat and carbs gets lower with the more food you eat. We have all seen this when we go to our favorite pizza place and after 8 pieces or so it's just not as enjoyable per piece.

Now some of you huge nerds may say, "Wait a second, ArcTan approaches pi/2 as carbs and fat go to infinity. Therefore,true happiness must occur at pi/2 units of utility" To that I would respond, "Ah very astute of you young padwan. That is a good guess, but true happiness actually occurs at 1.4 units of utility" So I challenge you reader if you think that carbs and fat (and salt) can give you true happiness, go ahead and see if you can reach true happiness. Just don't sue me when you get a heart attack.

For those of you who are up to the challenge, I have graphed my happiness plot (orangish) next to the plane of true happiness(blue).

We will assume that the plane of true happiness is at 1.4 units of utility. If you eat equal amounts of carbs and fat (in arbitrary units) you should achieve true happiness at 2.89894 units of carbs and fat.

In my 21 years of existence I have not achieved true happiness by eating so I suspect that I have not eaten 2.89894 units of carbs and fat. Please let me know if you have achieved true happiness by this method for it would give me great joy to see if my theory is true.

As a side note, I believe that if you actually eat good food (not McDonalds), you can approach the plane of true happiness at a faster rate. I am looking for a few adventurous risk takers who would be up to the challenge of comparing good foods like Chipotle to bad foods like McDonalds and seeing which one leads to true happiness in less time.

Happy Eating!

The Burraco

With the help of Lexi and James, I have a new idea for a mexican food. It's called the burraco. It is a hybrid of the burrito and taco. It is similar to a soft taco since it is wrapped with a tortilla and has no beans. This food will have delicious looking meat, cheese, and vegetables on the very outside edge but on the inside all you will find is rice. The basic idea is that it looks amazing from the outside but once you take a bite you realize it's not that great.

The price of this food at a restaurant is dependent on the customer's income. Rich people will pay a large percentage of their total income and the poor will pay a small percentage of their total income.

Restaurants that serve this food will be required to provide medical attention to all those who choke on the burraco. All customers will be treated equally in their medical needs. But since the restaurants gain no benefit for providing this service, customers will receive low-quality care. Since medical care will be complimentary, many customers will submit requests for medical attention for trivial illnesses and injuries. This will evidently lead to long lines and will force those who are actually dying from the food to wait in line for treatment.

Bon appetit!

Yes you do have time to learn an instrument-No More Excuses

I can't tell you how many people I have talked to who would like to learn an instrument. I play a lot of music and people always say things to me like, "I'd like to learn how to play guitar but I don't have enough time." This is a very strange thing to say if you think about it. Let's say you already know how to play the guitar; How do you expect to enjoy your ability without actually taking time to play it. It takes just as much time to practice an instrument as it does to learn the instrument. If you feel like you could enjoy playing an instrument once you know how then surely, you will have enough time to learn the instrument.

Notes

If you want to master an instrument you need to understand the notes that it produces. Some people learn an instrument by first learning how to play the chords. But how can you understand what the chords mean if you don't know what notes are in the chord. I strongly believe that the very best instrument to first learn is the piano. The piano allows you to clearly see what all the notes are and helps you understand what sharps and flats are. Also, if you know the piano, then you will know why the heck there is only a half step between E&F and B&C. There are all kinds of weird reasons for some things in music but to understand how music is played you must understand what the notes are. Guitar is also a good instrument to learn because you can see the notes unlike the trumpet which only has 3 buttons for about 35 notes.

Melodies

The next step is to develop that knowledge into skill. Since you now know all the notes you have a good foundation to build your skill on. The first thing to learn is how to play a melody. This is just playing consecutive notes that make a song. This isn't too big of a step from the knowledge of all the notes. All this step is is developing your reaction time between hitting notes on command. Once you can switch between notes at a good pace you can play melodies.

Different Instruments

If you are learning an instrument that only plays one note you can probably stop reading and just work on your ability to play melodies. The reason some instruments only play one note and others play many is because single note instruments are much more difficult. It would take some serious skill to play 2 notes on 2 trumpets at the same time. Single note instruments are all about that development of playing a melody. There are lots of things you can do with single note instruments that take a long time to master so it isn't possible to go further than learning to play melodies. Of course you can go into improv or composing music but that is music theory, not learning an instrument.

2 Part Harmonies

Everyone knows that piano would be a very boring instrument if it could only play one note at a time. The piano was designed in a way that there isn't much you can do with it playing only one note. Guitar is similar but you can do more with a guitar so single notes are definitely a possibility for good music. With these kinds of instruments you need to move on to playing more than one note at a time. If you experiment with playing two notes at once you will quickly realize that some notes sound good together while others don't (depending on what your opinion of good is). If you have a good music book that you are learning from it will take you from playing melodies to playing melodies with harmonies (2 notes at the same time). This transition is another simple one. You already know how to play melodies, so it will not take too much to learn how to play 2 lines at once. Believe me, your brain is strong enough to handle it. This is probably easiest to learn by playing one simple line and one more complex line. This step is nothing but developing the ability to play 2 lines at the same time.

To Infinity.....And Beyond!!!

The next step is pretty obvious because it is learning how to play 3 lines at once. 3 sounds like it is getting pretty complicated so there is a way that makes this step a smoother transition. This is chords. Chords are 3 notes played at the same time. Instead of blindly going into playing 3 notes at once it is a good idea to learn some of the main chords. Some examples are C chord(CEG), G chord(GBD), and F chord (FAC). All music is based on a set of chords. If you learn how to play a good number of chords then you will be able to recognize them when you are playing 3 lines at a time. This can sometimes simplify a song so instead of switching 3 notes you only switch one chord.

When you go beyond playing 3 notes at once it is just a matter of learning the more complicated chords that have more than 3 notes in them. This may just be a rearrangement of the easy chords or it may be completely new chords. But at this point, you can probably see the pattern in adding new parts.

Conclusion

The process of learning an instrument is really a step by step process. First you learn the notes and how to play them, then you learn how to transition between notes and play melodies, next you learn how to play 2 part harmonies, then you learn 3,4,5... part harmonies by learning the chords that they are composed of. I hope you can see the importance of all of these steps. I know a lot of people who just learn the chords on the guitar. That's fine if you don't plan on going very far but if you want to advance in playing your instrument I think it is a good idea to start with a good foundation. Once you have already built the foundation it becomes much easier to learn other instruments as well. When you understand how notes work and how important the intervals between notes are you will have a much better understanding of the music you play and it will be easy for you can enjoy music more and even make your own music. If you do want to learn an instrument obviously the best thing to do is get lessons but if you're poor like me find a good book that generally follows the steps that I've talked about. If you skip the first few steps then you will not get the full enjoyment out of playing an instrument.

Missing vs. Living

What is Home?

What is so special about this place called home? If you have a home you know that when you've been away for a while you start to miss it. It's just a place with people. In my case, my home is Alaska but I live in Colorado. It's weird because I love Colorado but still miss Alaska. I've come to consider Colorado a home away from home but there is still something that makes me miss Alaska. What is it that makes us miss our home?

Colorado, My Home Away From Home

I've lived in Colorado for 3 years as of this August. I live in Colorado for 4 months, go back to Alaska then come back to Colorado for another 4 months. Colorado is an amazing place. I love that there is so much to do here in Golden. Great mountain biking, hiking, tubing, concerts etc. But, the thing I like about Colorado the most is my friends. I have many more friends in Colorado than Alaska. It seems like that's always the case for people who go away to college. I love living in the same house with all my friends because there is always something to do and we can actively build our friendships with each other.

Alaska, My True Home

I lived in Alaska for 12 years before I went to colorado and now it's been 15 years since my family moved to Alaska. Honestly I know a ton about Alaska. I've lived there long enough and driven around a good portion of the state. I also worked at a visitor center for 3 summers where I told people about every square inch of public land in Alaska (Which is almost all of alaska) every day. I could tell you about every part of Alaska. But Eagle River, I know like the back of my hand. I could tell you about all of the hikes in the areas. Name all of the mountains that are fun to climb. I could even describe the ridgelines that connect all of the mountains and design a hike that would connect all of the hikes in the area. Of course, my family is also in Alaska. They are the people who truly support me and I know them all very well. We have gone through many fun times and many difficulties but I am familiar with them and am comfortable with them.

Familiar Things

A couple years ago I wrote a note on why we climb mountains. I explained that the reason I climb mountains is to familiarize myself with the area. It is very important for me to be familiar with the area around me. I think the same idea carries over to why we call a place home and why we miss it. Alaska has become my home because that is what I am most familiar with. I have lived with my family members either for my entire life or for their entire lives so I am very familiar with them. 15 years is a long time to live in one place so I miss how familiar everything is to me in Alaska.

It has took me 2 years for Colorado to become a home away from home. I am becoming more familiar with the area but there is a lot of Colorado I don't know anything about. I know Denver decently well but it's still foreign to me. My knowledge of Colorado is mostly limited to I70 boulder, the springs, and denver because those are the only places I've ever been. My friends in Colorado are great though. I have gotten to know them pretty well but I realize that even my friends are not as close as my family. I've lived with a couple of friends for 2 years which is pretty long but when you compare it with my family it's nothing. My little sister is 14 (Hey I remembered!!!!) so I have known her for 14 years. Out of my family I've known her for the shortest amount of time. 14 years!!! That's over 4 times longer than I've known ANYONE at Mines (Except for the 3 or 4 people I went to high school with that I rarely see). I've known my brother for 18 years now and I've known my older sister and my parents for 21 years!! I've lived with them for so long there is no way I could know anybody better than my family.

The Difference Between Missing and Living

So we have established that the reason I miss home is because I am most familiar with that location and those people. But, what about those times when you don't miss home or when you are at home and it's lame? Well I've pointed out that we all want to be familiar with someplace and with some people. But in our day to day lives that's not all that amazing. Missing and Living are two completely different things. Just because you miss something it doesn't necessarily mean that you will enjoy it when you go back to it.

Two Ways To Be Familiar With Something

Missing is remembering the comfortable feeling of BEING familiar with something. Living however, is much more enjoyable when you are BECOMING familiar with something. We all long to be familiar with something and there are two ways to do that. We can either go back to what we are already familiar with or familiarize yourself with something new. So missing and living are similar in that in both actions we have a desire to be familiar with something. But once you are completely familiar with something (Alaska in my case) living the same old life in Alaska is kind of boring. Being familiar with something is a great feeling but whenever we become familiar with one thing we naturally want to become familiar with the next thing.

Well I need to go familiarize myself with what I am going to do for Senior Design. I am looking forward to becoming more familiar with ZnO nanorods but I know in the future I will want to move on to something else :)