Train Ride, Space Ride
Like the hundreds of thousands of other people that use the MTA system to get where they need to go, I've made it a habit to keep myself entertained during my trip. Always distracting myself with a book, movie, game or music. It makes the ride go by a lot faster and also helps so you don't make eye contact with anyone else on train. So you can imagine the position I was in when I forgot my book and my phone was dead. I was forced to sit on the train and just wait till it got to my stop. But while I sat, it gave me time to think. I realized that the train is moving very fast, and still no one is loosing balance or falling down. I realized that the only time you feel the train the when there is a force making the train gain speed. Once the train reaches its' designated speed, everyone can walk around or read a book and not be dizzy or fall. We were still moving at around 50mph, so how was this possible? It had to do with the fact that we were in the train and so we too were moving around 50mph, the same speed as the train. With this information we can understand that we don't feel speed, instead what we feel is the change in velocity caused by force. So we can say we feel force not speed or velocity.
Alex Gallo
Earlier today, on my morning commute, I realized something so amazing. I was on the Q46 bus headed to the train station. I realized how Newton's first law of motion was intertwined with my bus ride. The bus started to accelerate at a fair speed and I decided to just simply jump straight up since there was lots of space. It was a little physics experiment I conducted while on my interesting commute. As I jumped, it happened to be that the acceleration force of the bus pushed me a little back. Here is where Newton's first law kicks in to play. Newton's first law of motion clearly states that an object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. This law directly relates to the situation I was in earlier today. Despite having people think I was crazy, I remained poised and calm throughout the whole bus ride. You know it's really something when you can relate theory to practice!
Nathaniel Arabov
