NEWS WORTHY

By: Rom

PHYSICS EXPERIMENTS

Since due date

Generating
Electricity!
Water Pressure

Three Gorges Dam, theSome weeks ago, sir

largest dam in the worldRichard and his students
uses a principle from aperformed
an
simple physics experimentexperiment that was
that can be done by Highone
of
the
most
School Students. The damrevolutionary
projects
not only is the largest butthat humans ever made.
is
also
a
dam
thatA
student
Phan
generates one of the mostKarrassamee
explains.
electricity in the wholethe magic to the dam is
entire world. It is so largein our EYES!!!.
The
that it could power wholemagical experiment is
cities. But what is behindan experiment of a
all this magic? Lets peekBottle punched with just
A picture
GORGESthree
DAMholes!!! "
into
oneof the
of THREE
the physics
taken from a drone..
projects that we learnt
The Simplest SOLUTION is the Best SOLUTION
William of Ockham

So how does this experiment work? A simple formula of pressure could explain this. It is
quite obvious that when we dive under water we start to feel the pressure building up,
especially our ears which is the most sensitive to pressure on our body feels the pain.
When we are above water we do not feel any weight of the air above us and the reason for
this is because all the pressure is exerted around us, in an almost equal force. That is why
we dont really feel any force on us. But when we are under water. Each meter of water
makes a lot of difference in the pressure. Thats why we feel it much greater. But luckily
the pressure difference is not so great that it could tear us apart. Fishes are happy too!
One really simple formula of pressure P=F/A could solve our problem for pressure. Net
force is simply M * a. Here a is nothing but gravity so our equation becomes P = m*g/A.
The mass of water could be solved by a formula of volume multiplied by its density. Lets
say density is D for now. Our equation will then D*V*g/A. Volume divided by the area is its
height. So the final answer becomes D * h * g = pressure. With this formula we could
clearly see that as depth increases the pressure builds up proportionally. This explains why
the bigger (taller or deeper) the dam the more energy it could generate.

Do you now see how a

revolutionary experiment can be
done in a high school project? A
simple yet brilliant idea could
create so much impact to our
society. Sometimes in life,

Simplicity is the key to

Brilliance Bruce Lee

Water will
compress the
water under it.
So the deeper
you go the
higher the
pressure.