Heaters at Augusta

     Augusta is one of the most famous golf courses in of golf.it holds the annual Masters championship that has been around for 78 years. One thing that makes this course cool is the blooming of the plants. How does this happen after winter with all the ice and snow on the fairwars. Well back in 2005 Augusta installed Heaters underneath the greens and flowers. 

    This allows Augusta to let flowers bloom and greens not to die so when the masters come around in spring the course can look good. One fact is that when the winter storm happened in Atlanta this year and iced everything over it was 20° outside and on the greens at Augusta it was a solid 70°. 

    They control this from a room inside one of the cabins and a shed in the trees around hole 12. This year the course looks better than ever for the masters. 

2014 Masters app, Mark Smith photo credit

 

Plasma Trash Converter

A plasma trash converter is a new object that scientist are trying out to see if they can take unwanted garbage into plasma to power lights and other things like that. They use these things to make carbon oxygen and stuff like that. 

The way it works is two electrroid beams are pointed at the object and heat that object to a tempature of 1,500 degrees farheight which mixes with oxygen and steam. This results in the object is vaporized to 75 to 85 percent. This turns the object into syngas. Then the melted object is filed into a tube that heats the object at a tempature of 18,000 degrees (which is hotter than a lightning bolt). This causes the object to vaporize and finaly it is turned into plasma. The trash that somehow survives is transmitted into a lower chamber where it is melted and turned into inert blocks and molton gas. 

Dozens of firms are racing to find the right formula to use plasma to blast garbage into gas. Yet despite  improvements in the technology, plasma has proved too energy for real world use on everyday trash. If the value of the syngas produced doesn’t effect the amount of energy required to power the furnaces. Than we may figure out how to turn trash into gas to power our cars 

Over 250 million trash objects are turned into plasma a year. Even with recycling and composting facilities tackling an estimated 85 million tons of refuse per year, it would take thousands of new plants to make trash into electricity and other things. 

"The Plasma Converter - Physics211_Craig_Mckenzie." The Plasma Converter - Physics211_Craig_Mckenzie. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Jan. 2014.

Golf Ball Science

    For this blog I am going to talk about the science of the golf ball. The golf ball is important to golf in many ways to golfers because if you don't have the golf ball you can't play the game. There also is a lot of science to the golf ball from the way it spins to when I reaches its terminal velocity.

    One thing in a golf ball Is the layers of the golf ball some have 5 layers and some have 1 layer all of they depends on the makers of the ball. For example TaylorMade makes golf balls with 5 layers each for different types of clubs but Callaway makes golf ball with 1 layer just for a nice feel. So every golf ball is made differently.

     You can also control which golf ball you would like to play with. The softer the golf ball the more control you get. But with a firm golf ball you get more distance but less control. All of this depends on the way you hit the golf ball.

    The most important thing on the golf ball is the dimples. The dimples are these little round things that make the ball fly straight. They give the ball a distinctive look and help the ball travel further. The dimples drag the golf ball which help it create backspin and let the ball get up in the air.

    There is a lot of science to the golf ball it is very complicated and the makers do these things are genius. I give a lot of credit to the people who make the golf ball because without these people I wouldn't be able to play the game I like to play everyday. 

"Lethal Balls." Taylormade -. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Jan. 2014.

CNN. Cable News Network, n.d. Web. 15 Jan. 2014

Hockey Science

There is a lot of science in hockey from the slap shot to hitting someone against the boards. Like in science you build up potential speed when you play hockey like during a break away. Also in hockey when you check someone against the boards you use kinetic energy to transfer it into  hitting someone. Also like Newtons Law for every action there is an opposite or equal reaction. Like when you get into a fight the opposite reaction is you go to the penalty box. There is also a science to put down the ice like it takes 10,600 gallons of water to make the ice and it has to be a perfect number because one more gallon and you have to start over again. 

"Science of NHL Hockey." Science of NHL Hockey. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Jan. 2014.2014

"Dallas at Winnipeg." CBSSports.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Jan. 2014

Cool things about hockey

        Hockey is a rough sport. It sounds easy but it is not. You try to get this little black puck into a 4 foot net to score. But there is more to hockey than that, you check people into the boards, you have to use different moves, you have to use different types of shots to score goals. 

        There is a lot of science in hockey. Especaly the reaction time you have goaltenders have just about a half of a second time to react to a puck that is comming at them. Also in hockey you have to use a shot called the slapshot. A slapshot is a high powered shot that comes off the hocjey stick at really quick speed. 

   

        Also a technique used in hockey is checking someone. A check is where you hit someone against the boards really really hard. It is a technique used to send a message to the other team or to use it as stragey and move the puck down ice and let your team score. 

       Probaly the collest thing in hockey is the sootout. A shootout is where the game has gone past overtime and somebody has to win. This is when it is just between a golie and the player and a little black puck. A great shootout just happened this Saturday between Russia and the USA. T.J Ochie scored in a thrilling shootout and one of the greatiest Olympic Games ever. This is some gool things about hockey. 

http://guardianlv.com/2014/02/tj-oshie-carries-u-s-past-russia-in-shootout/

http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/tj-oshie-plays-hero-shootout-us