Closing in on Midterms

Despite the fact that A Block was a bit




and somewhat





today was a productive day. Physics performed an activity designed to give insight into the function of simple machines. They definitely don't lessen your work! As you found, you had to do more work than did the machine, but you got to use far less force to move the object. So, the tradeoff is beneficial. We'll go into this in more depth tomorrow. One of your lab Extension questions asked you about the mechanical advantage of your inclined plane. We did not do this extension, but your reading tonight should give you some ideas on how we could have done this in class. Honors Physics and Physical Science were embroiled in exams and start new material tomorrow. Honors Physics heads into Fluid Mechanics and Physical Science into Heat and Temperature. This material will not be on the midterm exam. Physical Science will do a lab tomorrow centering on heat transfer between two bodies of water. Honors Physics will begin their discussion of buoyant forces and Archimedes principle. The lab on Friday will investigate buoyant forces in more detail.