Recent content by Maths_Teacher

I've been doing some work with my classes around the Yuri Milner Breakthrough Starshot project to send a tiny nano craft of mass around a few grams to alpha centauri. The starchip would travel at 20% of the speed of light. I've had them calculating various properties of the ship including...

Thanks for this, a couple of my pupils have interviews for Engineering coming up at Oxbridge, I'll share this with them - just the kind of thing they need as discussion points.

Thanks for that, this makes sense to me now. Great video, I use it my pupils tomorrow.

OK, I think the penny has dropped about the necessity of a Gears in order for there to be a variable driving Force, but what about the second point taking the derivative of a fixed Force when it is in fact changing with time either because of a gear change, or perhaps with a continuously...

Not thinking about anything as complex as a gear system. It seemed to me that the engine would need to use more engery a it warms up leaving less to provide ke to the system. For example is the lubrication not more effective as the engine heats? Also does the engining not have to overcome...

I've been teaching the Work, Energy and Power in UK A'Level Mechanics for some years without a problem. However, I got a question in class today which really made me think about my deeper understanding of the topic. I wonder if anyone can help with explanation of the problems below. The...