Long Weekend

Folks enjoyed a 4-day weekend, with the holiday and the professional-development day occupying Monday and Tuesday, but today was business as usual. Intro Physics reviewed their Forces and Newton's Laws of Motion exam and then moved to begin an examination of forces in fluids. We described how internal fluid pressure is generated, then looked at the basic pressure formula, which helped to differentiate the concepts of force and pressure, which many people mistake as being the same thing. We then discussed how pressure differences accounted for the motion of fluids and, at the end of class, began to take on Pascal's Principle and how it pertains to hydraulic devices. Tomorrow in class we'll review this material and get some practice working with pressure and hydraulics problems.

Physics D began their investigation of energy transformations and conservation of energy and Physics F finished that investigation during their short block. Physics D will finish tomorrow and F Block will move onto the idea of work.

Honors Physics reviewed their energy conservation lab, their Chapter 4 exam and then turned to the idea of work. We defined work, discussed examples where a force is and is not doing work on an object, described the concept of net work and how some forces generate positive work and others negative work and then looked at the work formula in preparation for tonight's homework. Tomorrow, we go over this homework as a review, then turn attention to kinetic energy and the work-kinetic energy theorem.