(Music)
Narrator: Hello, this is Mykelle.
She is an aerialist.
“What’s that?” you say? She will show you.
They use fabric and ropes and steel hoops to fight against gravity.
They spin around in the splits to make people ooh and ah.
Got it? Good.
What I am really here to do today is talk about what makes her job cool,
which is physics, of course.
“Oh no, it’s a science lecture,” I hear some of you murmur in the back.
But no. It’s really awesome. Trust me.
Let her give you a small example.
Mykelle is going to use a concept
physicists like to call conservation of angular momentum.
You know, when you are sitting on a bar stool spinning
and you stick your arms out, you slow down?
Right now, Mykelle is going to bring her legs together
so she is spinning super fast.
Whoa.
Don’t you get dizzy? No?
Alright, moving on.
Here is another simple concept that we deal with on a daily basis:
gravity.
Gravity is neat for aerialists
because it is what makes them look impressive to everyone else.
Does she look impressive to you?
I think so.
Did you notice the effect that gravity had on her?
I hope so.
Not only was it making her fall towards the earth,
it was making her speed up at the same time –
at 9.81 meters per second squared, for you nerds out there.
Wait … how does she even stay up in the air at all?
You might think that it is purely muscles and hard work, which it is.
Don’t forget, she trains a lot!
But the main cause of her not falling to her death most days is friction.
She has to create enough friction with her grip, wraps, and knots
that they hold her weight up.
See look, she is using it right now around her legs.
(Louder music)
Now watch carefully, when she lets go of the fabric,
she will be using a concept called center of mass.
Now is a good time to ooh and ah and applause.
She’s actively centering her weight right below where she is hooked in the ceiling.
This makes her able to balance in this surprising way.
The next demonstration up on our list is momentum.
Momentum is what makes a pendulum reach its peak on each side,
and what makes a karate expert able to smash bricks in half.
Mykelle is going to use momentum to aid her in inverting her body
to make her tricks look smooth and controlled.
See how she swings into the bottom to get to the top of that drop?
Okay, now that we’ve had a few things to think about, physics wise,
let’s put them all together.
Our little aerialist is going to show us what momentum, plus angular momentum,
plus gravity, plus friction all look like when they are put together.
Everybody get ready.
(Louder music)
(Applause)
Do you understand the physics better now that you have seen some examples?
Do you understand an aerialist’s tricks better as well?
Good, then we’ve done our job.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.
(Applause)
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