Friday, June 12, 2009

Contemplative Introspections on Introspective Contemplations

Take two ideal point charges of equal and opposite charge. The positive charge will be called q1, and the negative charge q2. Now separate them by a distance d. You now have yourself an electric dipole.

Now pick some point far away from the dipole. The distance from that point to charge q1 is r1, and the distance from that point to charge q2 is r2. The distance from that point to the midpoint of the two charges is r.

The potential at the point then is the combined potential produced by both charges:
kq(1/r1 - 1/r2) = kq((r2 - r1)/r2r1)

Now, as the distance r increases, d starts to become insignificant. And thus, let us assume r2 is approximately equal to r1. Thus, r2r1 can be approximated with r^2.

Well, wait. If we assume that, wouldn't r2 - r1 be equal to 0?

No, no. What nonsense. Everybody knows that r2 - r1 can be approximated with d cosθ.
θ, of course, is the angle between the line connecting the point to the midpoint of the dipole and the line connecting the two charges.

Wait what? How did you get that?

Go use the cosine law. Figure it out yourself. It's so obvious. But anyways, the potential would then be:
kqd cosθ/r^2

And just for the hell of it, let us let p be the "dipole movement". p = qd. The potential is now:
kp cosθ/r^2.

Thank you very much. And that's that. Any questions?

But wait how did you-

Nope? Okay. Moving on to capacitors...



I closed my physics textbook and put on some light-hearted Mozart. There must be easier ways of not doing my work in the yearbook.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

secular-atheist-agnostic-pantheist-neouncertaintdeist-theologicalnoncognitivist-tuamaterist

Once upon a time Little Jack never woke up for school. However, a spontaneous spasm in his arm conveniently swung his knapsack over his shoulder and propelled him out the door. Luckily, that one swift motion provided Little Jack's sleeping body with enough momentum to send him staggering down the steep hill, hurl him onto the bus, and gently plant him in a seat at the back of the classroom just as the bell rang. This was lucky because he probably would not have been able to facilitate such a procedure, conscious or otherwise.

On that day, by freak coincidence, or sheer luck, all the forces of nature and the universe orchestrated themselves with complete and utter seamless perfection. They propelled Jack's body in and out of classrooms at all the necessary times. When his english teacher gave him the routine lecture about his steadily declining work ethic, the undetectable P-waves of an earthquake in Japan nudged Jack's chin at the precise angle to induce a pseudo-thoughtful nod. By the end of the day, Little Jack was still in a Stage N3 NREM slumber, rather content in his obliviousness to the outside world.

After school had finished, a gust of wind gently directed Little Jack's body over to a fig tree by a river and sat him down...

When Little Jack finally awoke, he was surprised to find a new exhilarating feeling pulsing through every sinew of his existence. He had discovered Nirvana! He had become enlightened! Everything made complete sense, as if every question and frustration he had every experienced suddenly became flawlessly aligned in a vast and intricate tapestry. On his trek back home he smiled at the bus driver, gave up his seat for the old lady and still had enough Nirvana-juice left in him to not think a single negative thought on the entirety of the godforsaken uphill hike from where the bus dropped him off to his home.

There was however one task which eclipsed all of these acts...
Many alchemists and scholars has postulated that it would be impossible to do what Little Jack had in mind... But he didn't care for them. For he had motivation beyond any human understanding. He had found Nirvana. He was enlightened.
... and Little Jack was going to do his homework.

Little Jack strode into his room, chest puffing with pride. He sat down at his desk, grabbed a pen, took a deep breath and prepared himself to do his homework. He kind of felt like savoring this glorious and epiphanic moment in his life, and so he spent a little longer preparing by taking deep breaths and whispering to himself the sort of motivational quotes one finds written on mugs.

It was then that, the stretch receptors in Little Jack's colon sent a cogent signal to his brain to defecate. And so he did. After he had finished he returned to his desk feeling...feeling.... feeling like he was going to do something...but he couldn't quite place his finger on what it was.

'Nevermind', he thought.

And so he began his daily after-school routine of drawing phalluses. Little Jack's homework slipped away into the darkest corner of his messy desk, and soon drowned to death beneath the flood of pornographic images.

Long after the sun had set, Little Jack dosed off, to find himself safely asleep where he belonged.