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Ben Rankin
Physics 1010 Paper
1 August 2016

Titanic
The Sinking of the Titanic is a well-known incident, where practically unsinkable ship
Titanic was quickly sunk by an iceberg, despite the claims that it was practically unsinkable
Buoyancy, The force on an object immersed in a fluid. The force is itself is the fluid
pushing up on the object. The amount of force the fluid exerts is equal to the weight of the
displaced fluid. Boats use this force to float, by displacing a very large volume of water, it causes
the water to push up with enough force to counter gravity, causing a net force of zero when
stationary.
The Titanic itself was thought to be practically unsinkable. This however turned out to be
false when it hit a relatively large iceberg which created a hole in its hull. The titanic itself had
watertight bulkheads, but they didnt stop the water from spilling into other compartments, so
when the hole was created, the amount of water the Titanic was displacing continually decreased
as the water flooded in and spilled into compartment after compartment, thereby decreasing the
force the water was exerting on it.
Now, had they not ran into the iceberg, the whole incident would have been avoided, but
alternatively, the company known as White Star could have gotten a clue from its rival company
who had already foreseen an incident like this and had already created a design which could
handle it. A design that didnt let the water spill into other compartments.
The US Airways Flight 1549
The US Airways Flight 1549 was known for its emergency landing in the Hudson River.
It received two goose strikes which took down both engines while it was still at a low altitude.
We will look at why the engines failed.
Elasticity, the ability to resist distorting influence or stress and return to its original shape.
By definition, steel is actually more elastic than rubber. Each material has a modulus and elastic
limit. A modulus is how much force is required to deform a material. The elastic limit is the
amount of stress it takes to cause deformation in the material. So material with a high elastic
limit can be stressed (stretched, compressed, etc) more than objects with a lower limit (think
rubber-like substances). Material with a high modulus requires a greater force to deform it than
those with a lower modulus. Steel would have a high modulus.
The US Airways Flight 1549 went down shortly after taking off by taking two goose
strikes, killing both of the engines. The geese caused the engines to take a great enough force to
exceed their modulus, and enough stress to exceed their elastic limit. This resulted in
deformations that shut down the engine, causing the flight to make an emergency landing in the
Hudson River. Had they protected the engines somehow, or made the engines have a higher
modulus or elastic limit this would not have happened.

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Randolph Crash
A 17-year old High school senior was speeding when he lost control of his car and
crashed into a tree resulting in the deaths of two of his passengers. We will take a look at the
direct force that the car itself received upon hitting the tree. At my level of physics it would be
too much work and time to figure out the exact force exerted on the passengers themselves.
An object has a net force based on all forces acting upon it. An object sitting on the side
of the road has a net force of 0N, yes gravity is acting on it, but the side of the road is also
pushing on it, in an equal and opposite force to gravity. Same is true of an object pushed against
a wall, the force pushing it against the wall is countered by the force the wall exerts on the
object. As for gravity, its negating force would be a combination of the friction from the persons
hand and the friction from the wall its pressed against.
When a 17-year old High school senior was speeding when he lost control of the car. The
car flipped on its side and hit a tree, causing it to slow down really fast. Since force can be
calculated as F=MA, where F is force, M is Mass, and A is Acceleration, we could calculate the
force exerted on the car, and possible the passengers. Acceleration can be calculated (or rather
averaged) through V/t where V is Velocity, and t is time. Since they had a relatively high
velocity, due to speeding and mistaking the gas pedal for the brakes, they suddenly lost all of
their velocity upon hitting the tree. This means they had a huge velocity loss over a short time,
resulting in a huge acceleration. This large number is then multiplied by the mass to get an even
larger number for the force exerted on the car by the tree stopping it. Should he have not been
speeding, the force would have not been as great, and the crash may have been less deadly, for
that matter though, had he not been speeding, he might not have lost control either.
UTA Train Derailment
A UTA Train operator went around a turn too fast and subsequently derailed the train. We
will take a look at the forces that derailed the train.
Objects like to revolve around their center of mass. So if you push below or above or
anywhere around the center of mass rather than the center of mass itself, youll rotate the object.
The Centripetal force is the force that pushes towards the center of a turn for a turning
object. It can be considered the turning force for the object taking the turn.
In Salt Lake City a UTA train operator went too fast around a turn, causing the train to
derail. This is the result of the Centripetal force being great enough to turn the train on its center
of mass. The Centripetal force itself was increased due to the increased velocity and acceleration
of the train itself, allowing enough force that gravity couldnt contain the trains turn around the
center of mass. After that inertia carried it off the tracks. To prevent the derailing, all the operator
had to do was go slower.
As a side note, I remember hearing UTA employees complain about some of the new
UTA rules around the time of the derailing. I just happened to be on the train with them and I had
nothing better to listen too. They said that the operators werent happy with some of those new
rules, especially concerning speed. Now I know what they were talking about, and why those
rules were put in place.
Hold Your Wee for a Wii Incident

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Hold your wee for a wii was a contest where contestants were given a bottle of water
every 15 minutes and they had to drink it or forfeit. The staff encouraged the participants to quit
if they thought they couldnt handle it. One of the participants drank too much and was declared
brain dead in the hospital later. We will check why the participant died, and how that could have
been prevented.
Pressure is the force exerted on an object perpendicular to its surface. It is measured in
Pascals, which is equivalent to Newtons/Meters2. If you pump a balloon with air, it expands due
to the pressure exerted on the balloon by the air inside it. It keeps expanding until the pressure
inside the balloon is equal to the pressure outside the balloon, or until it is unable to keep
deforming the balloon. This applies to other containers including your bodys cells.
The members of a water drinking contest known as hold your wee for a Wii was
unaware of how and why water transfers into or out of cells. As a result, a woman drank too
much and diluted the salt in her blood. This resulted in lower concentration of these things
outside the cells of her body and brain. As a result the cells took in water to balance the
concentration of the salt, and increased the pressure inside the cells. The result of that was the
expansion of her brain cells, which eventually killed her. Had she not drunk as much water as she
did, the expansion would have been limited to tolerable levels. The alternative is to include extra
salt and minerals for the consumption of the participant to reduce the imbalance.

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Associated Press. "Excessive Speed Caused Train Derailment That Left 4 Hurt." Washington
Times. The Washington Times, 11 May 2016. Web. 01 Aug. 2016.
<http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/may/11/excessive-speed-caused-trainderailment-that-left-/>.
Associated Press. "Woman Dies after Water-drinking Contest." Msnbc.com. NBC News, 14 Jan.
2007. Web. 01 Aug. 2016. <http://www.nbcnews.com/id/16614865/ns/us_newslife/t/woman-dies-after-water-drinking-contest/>.
History.com Staff. "Titanic." History.com. A&E Television Networks, 2009. Web. 01 Aug. 2016.
<http://www.history.com/topics/titanic>
Justin Zaremba | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com. "Teen Admits to Speeding in Crash That Killed
2 Randolph Football Players, Sentenced to Probation." NJ.com. New Jersey On-Line
LLC, 14 Oct. 2014. Web. 01 Aug. 2016.
<http://www.nj.com/morris/index.ssf/2014/10/randolph_fatal_crash_teen_sentenced_to_p
robation_after_admitting_to_speeding.html>.
Mutzabaugh, Ben. "Five Years Ago Today: 'Miracle on the Hudson' Landing." USA TODAY.
N.p., 15 Jan. 2014. Web. 31 July 2016.
<http://www.usatoday.com/story/todayinthesky/2014/01/15/five-years-ago-todaymiracle-on-the-hudson-landing/4489875/>.