Jacob's Alaskan Trip

• Posted by Fatima Ahmed June 8, 2021

  • Price $5.00

  Jacob's Alaskan Trip

  
  

   

  
  

  

  
  

  Jacob was a physics student at the University of Texas in Austin, Texas, USA.  His hometown was a small city called Soldotna in the Kenai Peninsula in the US state of Alaska. Soldotna's winter was extremely cold with a few nights of sub zero temperatures. Every year, Jacob would visit his hometown in Soldotna during his winter break.  Since Jacob was a native to Alaska, the cold temperature did not bother him. He even used to visit different parks for sightseeing during his winter vacation in Soldotna. All these parks were always covered with a blanket of snow!

  
  

  

  
  

  One morning, during his winter break in Soldotna, Jacob went to visit a new park called Soldotna Creek for a sight seeing trip. His four-wheel drive car was very helpful to drive in that weather as it's tires had very good grip on the icy and slippery roads. At an elevated scenic viewpoint in the park, he got down from his car to take a photograph of a mountain range.  As soon as he started walking on the icy road, his shoes slipped and he fell on the ground. He immediately realized that he did not put on his snow boots before getting off his car. He got so exited with the viewpoint that he totally forgot to change into his snow boots. Every time Jacob tried to get up from the ground, he was falling again and again! The icy road was extremely slippery to even stand.  With a lot of effort he finally got up by holding the trunk of his car.

  
  

  

  
  

  He opened the car trunk and quickly changed into his snow boots. Jacob was always very experienced in snowy conditions, but that day, after so many years, he simply made a careless mistake by forgetting to change his shoes. By the time Jacob was done changing his shoes, his hands were freezing! So, he quickly started rubbing his hands together to make it warm. 

  
  

  

  
  

  As his hands got warmer, he hurriedly got his camera and immediately snapped a few wonderful pictures at the scenic viewpoint. 

  
  

  

  
  

  In the end, it turned out to be a wonderful day at the park! As Jacob drove back home and thought about his journey, he quickly remembered some of the physics laws that happened at the park that day. After all, he was a physics major. He gave a grin and realized how some laws of physics work around us so often!

  
  

  Now, for our quiz question today, please answer the following:

  
  

  Identify the different laws or concepts of physics that are working in Jacob's story? And how they are working?  

  
  

  (Hint: We already underlined the sentences in the story  where the physics laws are working!)

  
  

  Please try to write your answer in 185 words or less in the comments section below. Please submit your answer by June 14th midnight, Bangladesh time. Then, we will share everyone's answers and start a discussion on this topic. The person with the best, clear, easy to understand, and non plagiarized explanation will get $5. Runner-up will get $3.  So its not what you say, but how you say it!

  
  

  Quiz idea designed by Tazoar Ahsan, British Council 

  
  

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  This quiz has ended. The following contributors are the winner and runner-up of this quiz: 

  
  

  

  
  

  Sourav Chowhan (Won $5)

  
  

  

  
  

  Abdullah Masud (Won $3)

  
  

  Congratulations to everyone who participated in this quiz.  You can check everyone's answers in the comment section below. In this quiz, there were three underlined statements where we wanted everyone to elaborate their physics concepts:  1) car tire on icy road 2) slipping on icy road 3) hands becoming warm when rubbed together.  The answer to # 1, 2 and 3 is friction and in #3, the kinetic energy of the moving hands were converted to heat energy through friction.  We were looking for answers that were described in a very EASY TO UNDERSTAND manner for non-technical and non-physics audience.  A lot of people may not know all the laws in physics, but they can understand physics phenomenon if it is described in a practical way in our daily lives. So, we were looking for clear cut answers described with easy terms that everyone could understand very easily and that is how the winner and runner-up were selected.  In the end, it was great to read everyone's answers and perspectives in so many different ways. Again, thank you to everyone for educating us on this topic with your different opinions. It was a great read! 

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