Blog 11: Magnetism

After being sick for two weeks, i've watched a lot of television. One movie that came on while I was lounging around was Ice Age. I never thought I could relate physics to a cartoon, but then I wondered how these dumb animals like the sloth, Sid knew which way his family had migrated. How do animals know which way is north and south? After a little research i found out it's the magnetite (lodestone) in animals bodies that detects Earth's magnetic fields. Since Earth's geographic south is magnetic north, the animals will know which way to travel based on a feeling of pull on their lodestone. This magnetite in animals is like a built in compass. It would be bad if Earth's magnetic fields altered, changed direction over time, because then packs of animals would travel in the wrong direction and face extinction.

Blog 10: Circuit Breakers

This weekend, a bunch of girls were getting ready at my friend's house for a party. You know how girls are getting ready. We have the washing machine, blowdryer, flat irons, the whole fiasco plugged in and running. Although technology sets up appliances to be in parallel circuits allowing each to be used at one time, when you have too many things turned on at once, the circuit will blowout. This happened this weekend because there was too much ampage being drawn through the circuit. My friend's mom had to flip the circuit breaker to fix the problem. Circuit breakers are switches that will open if the current is too hight; they can then be reset, but you have to unplug something. You can't have that much turned on again or the circuit will will blow out AGAIN.