Although its too late for the extra credit, my bi-monthly moment of physics enlightenment is represented in this really blurry, from a blackberry camera, picture which was taken saturday afternoon when i was picking up a friend, who was too busy to take this picture for me so i had to take it while driving my manual car in the ridiculous storm. If its not obvious, this picture is of a banked turn going down alewa heights (it hit me goin up but i didnt hav the phone ready to take it), and is a good example of the effects of banking turns, versus completely level turns. First of all, centripetal force is any force that makes an object move in a circular path directed towards the center, for example: gravity, friction, normal force, tension. When taking a banked turn, the centripetal force exerted on your car is normal force, or n, which due to the slope is directed toward the center, as opposed to friction, or (mu)(n), and therefore (thankfully in this case, or else i would have overcome the centripetal force and gone off tangent and hit that acura) the centripetal force is greater, which allows you to take the turn with more speed safely. Another example of physics i encountered that evening was when a car very far in front of me began to hydroplane after it applied too much braking force on and the wet road and thus broke traction with the road and thankfully wasn't hurt. Another example of physics that I was tempted to (but not even close to considering) try was an intentional breaking of traction (see 2 posts below), which relies on the breaking of traction, friction, and momentum to intentionally slide the car. On another note, let it be known that my physics journal for this week does not include the stop short or mr. k's other "sneaky physics."
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