Name a game that can be enjoyed by the young and the old, the rich and the poor, the strong and the weak, the tall and the short, male and female alike, and that list will be fairly limited. 聽One that makes it to the shortlist would be BOWLING! 聽It is a time-tested game that has been enjoyed by millions around the world in various forms. 聽The one that we are most familiar with is ten-pin bowling in our neighborhood bowling alley.
Growing up with a family that loved bowling, the game has always had a special meaning for me. 聽It reminds me of good times, camaraderie, cheerfulness and sometimes, playful heckling. 聽I wanted to share the experience with the students in my classes, since, along with the fun and laughter of the game, there is also a lot of science to explore. 聽This year (as with every other year I have taught at 91国产自拍), I brought the students in my Physics classes to play a game of bowling, where we saw Newton鈥檚 Laws of Motion in action! 聽We had a great time trying out the differently weighted balls to compare the acceleration of the ball down the lane. 聽As we know, mass and acceleration are inversely proportional to one another when the net force is kept constant (F = ma). 聽This is Newton鈥檚 Second Law of Motion. 聽We also had some good laughs when one of the pins was left standing after a ball rolled right past it into the gutter. 聽This is an example of Newton鈥檚 First Law of Motion: an object at rest will stay at rest, unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. 聽I guess the ball wanted the pins鈥 forces to stay balanced in the case of our 鈥淏est Gutter Bowler鈥 during our past excursion.
How about Newton鈥檚 Third Law of Motion? 聽Well, we all experienced that when we lifted the bowling ball with our hands during the approach. 聽For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. 聽The force that I applied to support the ball was received as a weight on my hand, which is the force that the ball exerts on me 鈥 the more massive the ball, the more force I would have to exert, and at the same time, the more weight I would feel.
My students and I look forward to this bowling activity every year. 聽This year, we awarded trophies to the top male bowler and to the top female bowler. 聽My hope is that the time spent at the alley will get the students to think about science in our daily lives and how we can use it to enrich our everyday experiences. 聽With that, I鈥檓 off to my next game: see you at the bowling alley!