Integrating Calculus withing a Physics Project

[don_813]

Hey, I am in high school AP Physics/Calculus and my group needs to come up with a project that involves both the use Physics and Calculus. We are willing to research and do anything. Does anyone have any interesting topics that they could share with us. By the way, we CANNOT do a project on Roller Coasters, Catapults/Trebechets, or something involving sports. My teacher says they are too common.

Thank You

 

[daniel_i_l]

Pretty much all of physics is calculus based.
If you want an interesting topic you could do something like this:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=E20B77CB-E7F2-99DF-33669D92032DFF8C&sc=I100322] [/URL]

 

[don_813]

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Yea that's a good idea but I'm am not really familiar with Optics. I'm in Physics C and we do not cover Waves, Optics Atomic and Nuclear Physics, Thermal and Fluid Mechanics as those are covered in Physics B. But I will consider that topic. It looks really interesting.

 

[tim_lou]

solve a damped harmonic oscillator?

 

[don_813]

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Sounds interesting. Any other proposals?

 

[DyslexicHobo]

How in-depth do you want it do be? I've always wanted to make a mini generator (maybe something that'd work kind of like a dam, where you could pour water in, have it rotate a turbine to fill a capacitor), and then recycle the energy as electricity to do something cool... like start a Rube Goldberg machine or something.

 

[don_813]

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That's sound really interesting. I've definitely putting that as Top 3...
Anyways, the thing is i have until May 23 Wednesday to make a proposal. Once proposals are in you CANNOT change your topic. So I need to come up with something that i can write a 40 page report on and make an hour's worth of presentation. I have to do this with 3 group members. The final project is due June 6th or something like that.

 

[berkeman]

Do you see anything interesting at the Physics Today magazine website?

http://www.physicstoday.org/