Wednesday, September 4, 2019
Five Equations That Changed The World :: science
Five Equations That Changed The World ââ¬Å"He [Isaac Newton] sought out secluded areas, where he would sit for hours at a time, not so much to observe the natural world as to immerse himself in itâ⬠Sir Isaac Newton was a man who would keep to himself. If not for that quality he may not have made the discoveries that he did. He would often sit in the garden for hours on end just thinking and formulating his ideas about the universe. In fact, that is the very place where the ideas of gravity and centrifugal force first came to him. He noticed an apple fall, and wondered why the apple fell to the earth but the moon didnââ¬â¢t. His discoveries about gravity led to his equation ââ¬Å"E = G x M x m x d^2â⬠, which means ââ¬Å"the force of gravity is equal to the gravitational constant multiplied by the two masses involved divided by the square of the distance between them. This equation told scientists in NASA how to escape gravity and leave the earth to go to the moon. ââ¬Å"In other words, there appeared to be a trade-off between pressure and speed: The smaller the speed, the greater the pressure, or the greater the speed, the smaller the pressureâ⬠This is a great discovery of Bernoulli. It seems to make sense when we apply it to blood vessels. Where the blood moves faster, the more it pushes forward, the less it pushes on the walls. A later more ingenious application for this idea is flying. The airplane was invented after Bernoulli but not due to him. The airplane and Bernoulliââ¬â¢s equation ââ¬Å"P + p x à ½v^2 = CONSTANTâ⬠, were not connected until a Russian scientist by the name of Nikolai Zhukovsky made an excellent observation. He noticed that the tops of the wings of the plane were rounded. When he tested a plane in a wind tunnel, he noticed that the wings created two jet streams, an upper and a lower. The upper jet stream was narrower than the lower. Air is considered a fluid, so therefore the jet stream can be viewed as a river. According to Leonardo DA Vinciââ¬â¢s ââ¬Å"Law of Continuityâ⬠, which says ââ¬Å"A river of uniform depth will have a more rapid flow at the narrower section than at the widerâ⬠, the upper jet stream is faster than the lower. This is an amazing discovery on Zhukovsky; he had discovered how airplanes flew.
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