Physics

The five or six of you who've read previous posts of mine (thereby earning my undying gratitude), may remember this tome from quite a while ago.  Specifically, 38 months ago.  Which in people years is like a million years or so.  But it tells the tale of how I got interested in physics.

I got another taste of physics on my way home from the Big D this morning.  Yes Dallas.  I have a quarterly currency requirement to visit large cities to refresh my memory of why I don't live in one.  This quarter it just happened to be in Dallas.  I attended some training with two of my newer colleagues to start bringing them up to speed in managing and developing databases.

I know, I know.  Wow, juvat! You lead such an exciting life.  Databases?  Who knew?

Awww Shaddup, ya mongrels!  It keeps Mrs J in shoes.

In any case, which is Little Rhody for "Get on with it, juvat!", we were on our way home and making relatively good time in spite of a driving rain storm when we come over a hill approaching an intersection which also happened to be a turn point in our route.  Dimly through the rain, we see a lot of brake lights and a couple of flashing blue lights.

Now, this was intersection was between two county roads as we were attempting to shave a few minutes of time off  a change from US 67 to US281.  But there was a lot of stopped cars.  Coming to a stop, we can see that, all told, there are probably 50 stopped cars. Given the fact that we are in the middle of nowhere, we realize this is a serious incident.  I survey the map and backtracking will result in about a 40 mile detour.  

So we, being patient, (yeah right, patience? juvat? RRRRIIIIGHHHTTT!). Ok, I wasn't driving, so the driver was patient.  

In ANY case, several cars were less patient and turned around, allowing us to get closer to the problem.

When we got close enough, we realized that a truck driver, with an oversize and very heavy load, apparently believed that not only was he excused from the laws of Man regarding speeding, but that he could violate the laws of Physics with equal impunity.

As a refresher, and stolen from the aforementioned post (Beans, you thought you were going to escape the physics lecture dincha? Not so fast, buckwheat!)

Newton’s First Law. “An object at rest will remain at rest unless acted on by an unbalanced force. An object in motion continues in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.”
Celebrex commercial notwithstanding, this law pretty much is the one immutable law of flying.  In Fighter Pilotese, it says, “You ain’t gonna fly until you light the engines.  You’re going to go in a straight line until you change the pressure level around a portion of your aircraft.  And you’ll only stay flying as long as your engines stay running and you avoid hitting anything.”
Newton’s Second Law.
Acceleration is produced when a force acts on a mass. The greater the mass (of the object being accelerated) the greater the amount of force needed (to accelerate the object).
Mongo say “Small fighter, Big Engine.  Trees go by fast.”
Newton’s Third Law.
For every action there is an equal and opposite re-action.
Newton must have been married.

So, from our brief refresher, our intrepid trucker (a slightly shorter word with the "tr" replaced by a consonant much earlier in the alphabet would be more appropriate, although run afoul of Sarge's family blog rules) was speeding, on a wet, indeed flooded, roadway and needed to change direction to a new highway.  He then proceeded to attempt to do this by turning the steering wheel quickly.

This caused the trailer to "continue to move in the same direction with the same speed", thereby jackknifing his vehicle.  

Not sure what it is, but it was very large.

Smack dab in the middle of the intersection.  Nobody could move.

There was a couple of county deputies there, probably my age, as well as a couple of Highway Patrol guys.  Their combined age looked to us to be about 30.  Finally, after about 45 minutes, the car in front of us actually a van starts moving.  

He then exits the road and goes down in, what Texans call a "bar ditch" and comes up the other side and drives off.

My colleague, the driver, who happens to be female, looks at me and just as I think she's going to ask for advice, a grin breaks out.

"We're going Muddin!!!!!"

Well, the School District transportation department may not be happy that the car wasn't returned in pristine condition.  However, the three of us had a great time.

We were only an hour or so later than advertised.  Mrs J had some time critical chores for me to accomplish on RTB, which I did.

So, Sarge, I apologize if I caused any anguish with the late posting.

I did intend to tell a different story, which I stumbled upon.  But didn't have the time to do the research it deserved, so the good news is....

I've got a subject for next Monday's post.  And that's a good thing.