Tuesday, September 24, 2024

Kinetic Energy

 Kinetic energy relies on the Speed and Mass of the object, so the faster the object is moving the more kinetic energy is stored.
But if two objects move at the same speed, the object with more mass will move faster.

Let's take two objects, one ball and a plane, let's say the ball mass is 0.1kg and is moving at 4,000 m/s, and the plane is 20 tons moving at 5m/s, now it's not clear which is moving faster.
To figure out which object is moving faster we can use the equation of:

Ek = 1/2MV^2.

The E is Energy, while the K means it is kinetic, so Ek is = "Energy Kinetic", M is mass which is Kg in this case, and V means Velocity.

Now let's do the Equation, the most important is to keep the mass the same, so let's turn the 20 tons into 20,000kg, and to make it consistent we can do the 0.1 ball weight and divide it by 1,000 to get 0.0001kg. Now it is ready to be plugged into the equation.

First, we have to get the 1/2 or 0.5, so we put: "0.5 * 20,000 * 5^2" (this is 5 squared or 5*2, keep in mind that it is the speed being squared not the whole thing.
Now doing the equation gets us 250,000 Joules, which we rewrite as 250,00kj.
But for the ball, it is "
0.5 * 0.0001 *  4,000^2" which equals to about 800 joules or 0.8kj, so the plane flying at 5m/s with the weight of 20,000kg is travelling around 312.5 times faster than the 0.1kg ball going at 4,000m/s.


Stored Energy

The first law of Thermodynamics Energy is neither created nor destroyed as it can only be transferred between different forms and objects.

There are different types of energy:

Thermal which comes from heat like volcanos. 

Kinetic energy is energy coming from movement.

Gravitational potential energy, energy comes from the position of a thing in a Gravitational field.

Elastic potential energy mainly comes from springs and rubber bands. 

Chemical energy comes from chemical bonds.

Magnetic energy comes from Magnetic fields. 

Electrostatic energy which normally happens when you walk and shock someone.

And Nuclear energy comes from splitting atoms apart.

There are many ways to transfer types of energy, by using your arm to pull an elastic band, you are turning your Mechanical energy into elastic energy, electrical energy by plugging things into sockets to power them, or by light or sound waves.

When we take a group of objects, we can name that a system, in this system, energy is transferred to each object, but in an "Open System" the objects in the system can exchange energy from the outside world.

Let's take an electric kettle and fill it with water, when you turn on the power to boil the water in the kettle, the heating element uses the electric energy and turns it into heat that then transfers to the water to boil it.

There is also something named Work Done, mainly Mechanical and Electrical, mechanical work is when force is used to move an object, and electrical work happens when electricity flows between.
For example, let's say a train is moving along the track, and the tracks ahead crash down and now there is a large gap that the train will hit if it keeps going it at speed.
What the train driver will do is hit the brakes, which causes friction between the wheels and the track, slowing the train to a stop, the reason why this works is is because the kinetic energy from the train movement to thermal energy and heat due to friction.
That is why when you are going very fast and slam the breaks, the breaks themselves will heat up, and when you slide your hand fast on a smooth surface it gets hot. 



Atoms and Ions

Everything, non and living is made of small things named Atoms.

At the basic structure, an atom is a Nucleus surrounded by-elections which orbit around the Nucleus in rings called shells,
the nucleus of an atom is made out of two things Protons, and Neutrons, both having very similar weight, but electricians are nearly 2000 times lighter than protons or neutrons.

Protons have a +1 charge, while neutrons have no charge, so they are neutral, and electrons have a -1 charge.
The size of an atom depends on the type of element they are, but most are 0.1 nanometers in size, for example, the average size for a penny is 19.55mm, which is equal to 19,050,000 nanometers).
Most atoms are empty space because we measure the size of an atom starting from the nucleus to the outermost shell.

The nucleus is 10,000 times smaller than the size of the whole atom,
if an atom has the same number of Protons and Electrons, the atom thus, neutral.
But when an atom gains an election it is named a Negative Ion or Anion since there are more electrons than protons, this is called a -1 negative ion, and if you add another election it would be a -2 negative ion. 

Then if an atom has fewer electrons than protons (3 protons 2 electrons), it would be a +1 ion.
An atom on the periodic table is an Element, and each box on the periodic table has an element, each box is named a 'Nuclear symbol". 

Let's take two elements: Oxygen and Lithium, the Li and O on the box are the elemental symbols, then in the bottom left corner of the element is the Atomic number which tells us how many protons the atom has, so an Oxygen atom has 8 protons while a Lithium atom has 3.

The top number is the Mass number, which tells us the total amount of Protons and Neutrons the element has.
Now let's use a 
lithium atom for example, so a Li element or lithium will have a 7 as its mass number and a lithium atom has 3 protons, so if you do 7 - 3 protons, you get the number of neutrons a lithium atom has which is 5 neutrons. 

An oxygen atom has a mass number of 16, and its amount of protons is 8 so 16 - 8, is 8 so it has 8 neutrons. Or to get the amount of neutrons you do the mass number minus the atomic number.






   

Cell Structure

Let's start with the difference between Animals, Plants, and Bacterial cells.
Cells are the smallest form of life that can replicate independently, unlike plant and animal cells that can replicate and duplicate. 
Bacterial cells are a whole organism, they can also fully reproduce asexually, but animal and plant cells are multicellular which are organisms that contain lots of cells. 

If we take a human and put him under a microscope, we will notice that the human is made out of cells, and the skin is made of skin cells, blood is made from blood cells, in our bodies alone we contain hundreds of different types of cells, an adult human can have up to 40 trillion (40,000,000,000,000) cells.

Plant and animal cells are eukaryotic cells.

Let's take a plant and animal cell to compare each other. 
First, they both have a cell membrane that controls what can go in and out of the cell, like a security gate.

Inside the cell membrane is a Nucleus which has all the DNA of the cell both are filled with cytoplasm a type of gel-like substance, and both are littered with lots of Mitochondria which provide energy from sugars like glucose to make energy for the cell, and both have lots of Ribosomes which protein is synthesised.

Plant cells are slightly different from animal cells, one thing that separates the plant cell from the animal cell is the walls are more rigid and made from cellulose, along with a Permanent Vacuole which is a sort of sac which is a mixture of water, sugars and salts, and finally Chloroplast which is where Photosynthesis is done.
For a rough explanation, photosynthesis is when a plant takes energy from the sun and forms sugars like glucose to help feed the plant. 
And plants that do photosynthesis have a green-coloured substance named Chlorophyll, which gives the plant leaves its green colour. 

Bacterial cells are unicellular which means that they are one cell, they are Prokaryotes which are=.

Friday, September 6, 2024

Nauru

Pronounced Nau-roo. It is the least visited country in the world (beating North Korea).

Some linguists speculate that the name Nauru comes from the word Anaoero, which means "I go to the beach".

The county is situated in Oceania, Melanesia and Micronesia, but categorically their country is in Micronesia, not "the Federated States of Micronesia".

It is the smallest country in Oceania, being only 8.1 square miles or 21 square kilometres, the country's perimeter is only 12 miles or 19 kilometres long.

Nauru is split into 14 Administrative districts, but when election time rolls around the country is split into 8 regions to give their votes.

Nauru is the only country in the world to not have an official Capital, most say it is Yaren because it is where the parliament and administrative buildings are and is the only airport to their country Nauru International. 
But Yaren is considered a "Main District".

Yaren is the 3d largest town with around 1700, on the island, the second largest is Menen with around 1,400 people, and the largest is Arijejen with 2400.

Coming into Nauru is quite difficult as the whole country is surrounded by jagged coral reefs that's why they don't really have many seaports.
There are really only 2 small harbours capable of holding small to medium-sized boats, one at Anibare on the east side, and one Aiwo at on the west.

Since the whole country is literally an oval, there is one ring road that covers the whole country named 'The Island Ringroad" taking around 1 hour to travel around the whole country by car, and there is also a bus every hour that drives on that road.
There are also unpaved gravel roads that cross between the country to shortcut around the country. 
On one of these roads is the "Nauru Detention Centres", which are sites that hold prisoners from Australia to detain illegal immigrants. 

There is also a 3-mile or 4.82km rail system that transports Phosphate off the coast of Aiwo.

Nauru gets less than 1000 people a year in tourists, but if you do come here some places are interesting like:
The Yeren Parlement building, Buala Lagoon, the Moqua well and cave, Frigate bird games, Anabare bay, a central plateau named "Topside", WW2 artillery, the Linkbelt Oval Sportfield, and then Scuba diving.

Nauru sits on the Southern Pacific plate only 34 miles or 56km away from the Equator, they are one of the great Phosphate rock islands the other two being Kiribati's Banaba island, and then 3,000 miles or 4828km away Makatea island across the international date line in French Polynesia.

The reason why they have so much Phosphate is because of bird poop, over thousands of years, poop droppings from migrating birds leave these 3 islands with plenty amount of Phosphate.

Around 300 meters inland from the jagged coast is the most fertile land in Nauru, and in the south is Buada Lagoon, Nauru doesn't have rivers or streams so most of its water is either desalination plants or through rainwater collection.
In the centre you reach a more grassy plateau, the highest point being Command Ridge at 233 feet or 720 meters tall this is where most of the Phosphate was mined for the past few decades. 

In 1968 they had the highest GDP in the world after they opened up the Phosphate mines, but they knew that these Phosphate mines would eventually deplete so they put most of their money into Trust funds. 
Sadly most of the funds put into these Trusts, were mismanaged and most were lost, almost making Nauru bankrupt, they are a cash-only country. 
Other than the dwindling phosphate reserves, they also have fishing, and the very minute crops they grow on the island.

In the Buada lagoon, they practice Aquaculture, in which they raise Milkfish, which predate European settlers, but most basic goods must be imported via Australia or New Zealand.

The food here is kinda fatty, as most grocery stores have to wait up to 6 weeks per shipment of goods, so most have to either get what they can on the island or stock up on non-perishables.
Most Nauruans eat grilled or fried fish in their meals, along with pandanus and pineapple, with over 130 Chinese restaurants with burgers, pizza and spam fried rice is common. 
This diet is one of the reasons why Nauru is "The most Obese country in the world", with over 70% being obese, and 94% overweight.

The country's population is 12,688 it is the 3d least populated nation, after Tuvalu and Vatican City, around 60% of the population is Nauruan, 24% of other Asians and Pacific islanders, and 8% Europeans, 8% is Han Chinese.

The Australian dollar as their currency, type I plug outlet and they drive on the left side of the road.

There are an estimated of around 15,000 Nauruans around the world, around 1,000 Nauruans live in Australia, and 8000 in the USA, although everyone in Nauru speaks English, the mother tongue is Nauruan, it is technically a Micronesian language.

They also have a strange way of displaying cardinal direction that only works on their island, there are 4 main directions: Pawa top left, Pawa bottom left, Pwiju bottom, Pwiju and top left.
those cover quadrants of the island, and then Arijejen for left and Ganokoro for right, both cover the interior of the island (please just google it makes more sense).

Pictures of Nauruan wearing armour made from coconut fibres and pufferfish helmets, they also do Teigen which is a type of music festival, and also Frigate bird fishing.

Nauruans also enjoy weightlifting, AFL and Rugby, Nauru also signed in 2001 the Pacific Solution Agreement with Australia to detain illegal immigrants to Australia, the highest number of people held at the Nauru detention facility was 1233 in 2014.

The rough history is:
Micronesia and Polynesia came in, 12 tribes were established, British wailers stopped by and traded, tribal war in 1878, Germans came in, and they Established kings, then the Phosphate was discovered by Albert Fuller Ellis, then in WW2 Australia captured Nauru, then Influenza virus hits, then Japan takes over in WW2, then they relocate lots of Nauruans to Chuuk island, they get help from Australia to fight off the Japanese, around 800 Nauruans come back from Chuuk island, 1868 independence.

Some famous people are mainly from the government: King Aweida, Hammer DeRoburt (founding president), Marlene Moses, Keiren Keke, David Adeang, Itte Detenamo, Alopua Tetoa (football player), Yukiio Peter (weight lifter), Reana Solomon (weight lifter), their President is an Olympic gold medal winner and won 7 gold medals at the Commonwealth games.

For outside relations, the Soloman Islands, Kiribati, and The Federated States of Micronesia have good ties due to them being Island nations, along with Fiji to help further their studies and education, Nauru is one of the 4 countries to recognise Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent nation-states to which Russia gave them around 50 million in aid, then in 1981 they recognised the Sadr the Saudi Arab Democratic Republic but in the 2000s they withdrew the tie to sign accords with Morocco because they wanted to invest in their phosphate mines.

Then when they joined the UN Nauru recognised Taiwan as a country, in 2002 Taiwan cut ties with Nauru because Nauru recognised the PRC instead.
Then in 2003, they were sad about losing Taiwan, so they closed their embassy in China and reestablished ties with Taiwan in 2005.
But most likely Australia is their best ally as they are the ones that helped Nauru the most and both have agreements keeping Nauru afloat.



Wednesday, August 21, 2024

History pt 9: The Hebrew Bible

Around 5000 BCE, King Menes was able to unite upper and lower Egypt, this was mainly due to the Nile River which winds from south to north. 
So maps showing the South are considered the Upper part of Egypt.

The Pyramids of Giza were built around 2500 BCE or around 4,500 - 4,600 years ago, which is fairly early in the Egyptian empire,

Then in 1700 BCE, there was Hammurabi who ruled over the Babylonian Empire, known for the code of Hammurabi which are written laws made by himself, and be believe Abrahim grew up in Ur at the same time as Hammurabi, during this time the Pyramids are only 700-800 years old.

If we go to the year 1700, Ibrahim goes to what is now Judea and they established Judea.
But they were not the first people to live in the area of what is now Judea the Canaanites, Phoenicians and others in the region.

Then around 1700 BCE, according to the Old Testament Joeseph (Abraham's great-grandson) went to Egypt to become the Vizier for the Pharoh.

Then in 1500 BCE the migration of Jewish people, where they were enslaved, then in the story of Exodus. Moses parts the Red Sea to escape the Egyptians, and the Jews go back to Jerusalem, in 1200 BCE, this happens according to Genesis. Then Joeseph sets his people free during Exodus and makes their way back to Jerusalem and Joeseph parts the Red Sea. 

Monday, August 12, 2024

Physical and chemical changes

Chemical and Physical changes can come in many forms.

One might be ice cubes melting, propane being lit ablaze to cook, or iron chains rusting.

So if we wanted to write the ice cubes melting in the chemical form you could write it as H2O(s) > H2O(l), you would see the water molecules change, this is considered a Physical change, along with boiling it into vapour, that is also a physical change. 

However, a general rule of thumb is that when you are talking about appearance or overcoming intermolecular change, it becomes a physical change.

However, chemical bonds either mean that molecules are breaking or forming.

Propane is burnt and turned into fire to light stoves, and when propane is lit on fire, it starts to form molecules of carbon dioxide.

Chemical Reactions happen when bonds are formed are broken between atoms, for water 2H2O, one of the 2 is molecules of molecular Hydrogen and the other 2 are telling us that for the O2 reaction, you need 2 Hydrogen.  

Molecular oxygen and molecular Hydrogen are extremely reactive, and they are even used in rocket fuel because of how reactive they are.
And if we use the 2H2O it makes 2 molecules of water, combining them all together you get the H2O to have 4 molecules of Hydrogen and 2 Oxygen molecules.

The reason why these two molecules combine is because they have lots of energy, and they bounce around a lot to the point they collide with other molecules and leave their old bonds to make new bonds.

But since a 2H2O molecule is a combination of two molecules it is considered a Compound. 

All Chemistry follows a sort of formula, Ractiants and then the Products, starting off with the formula:

Ca(s) + Ag2SO4(aq)      ->          2Ag(s) + CuSO4(aq).

    Reactants                                 Products

Coeffeciants are the large numbers that come before a Chemical Formula for example the element above is Ag so a 2Ag means that 2 silver atoms are needed.
Subscripts are the smaller numbers that indicate there are multiple instances of the same element within a substance, i
n the example above, two silver atoms are inside the silver sulfate compound.

the (aq), (l), s() (g), mean what state of matter, the (l) means liquid, (s) means solid, (g) for gas and finally (aq) means aqueous which dissolves in water.