Vampire Vectors

Some of you in Physics left class looking like your blood had been drained by an unholy being. Yep, vectors can do that to you...Regardless, folks made a lot of progress with skills for drawing appropriate vector diagrams, understanding coordinate systems and vector combination. Tomorrow's quiz will be a few questions concerning the nature of vectors, basic vector addition, vector resolution and coping with non-perpendicular vectors. I think that there are 7 questions on the quiz (don't quote me, though, as I wrote it yesterday) and none will have 11 different vectors to work with (like today's activity).

Honors Physics folks also looked exsanguinated and, again, this was not a surprise. Projectiles launched at an angle make for tough analysis. The infuriating thing is that the math is not really hard and the basic concepts are not hard. But, putting it all together takes very sharp problem-solving skills and a good measure of creativity. Being willing to take a risk and start over if necessary is also a big help. The two problems that were assigned today are not simple, but they are fun, if you appreciate a challenge. We will discuss them tomorrow and perhaps allow some time for group brainstorming.

Physical Science - You guys got your feet wet in the Great Vector Ocean today and seemed to take to them fairly well. We will discuss today's worksheet in class tomorrow before embarking on a discussion of aceceleration (which is also a vector). There will be a good number of practice problems for acceleration and velocity to work on in class tomorrow, so have calculators at hand. Note: class average for the Mathematcs exam was 81.6%, which is quite respectable. Good job!