marathon

Yesterday I started the day off extra early to help hand out water to thousands of marathoners. When we got to Triangle Park it was 3:30 and we all began to pour gatorade and water into cups. We broke up into groups of three or four and manned a table. All of the groups then started to stack their five layers of cups, trying to finish faster than everyone else. Everyone was almost done with their first layer when the water stopped working! We had a bunch of hoses attatched to a fire hydrant, and all of them stopped flowing. This made us all kinda nervous since our only job as a thirst aid station was to provide the runners with water/gatorade. Then, after a few phone calls, a Board of Water Supply truck arrived and saved the day. He had to "open up" the fire hydrant or something. But to do this he needed a long metal thing which helped him to provide torque...PHYSICS!! Torque is a force that causes or opposes rotation. In this case, it caused rotation and depended on force and the lengeth of the lever arm. The guy had a hard time at first, but he solved this problem by increasing the length of the lever arm...he increased the distance between his hand on the metal thing and the top of the hydrant. I was amazed how common an application of torque could be and how much easier it can make things. I tried to take a picture of this great display of physics, but the hydrant was right next to a reflective fire orange cone, which was the only thing that really showed up in the picture...but you can kinda see the man and fire hydrant if you look closely. The actual running part of the marathon also related to physics. For example, as the runners ran on the road, they exerted a force (mg) downward as the road gave them a normal (n) force upward. Also when we stacked our cups of water/gatorade, I witnessed center of mass. Of course, my friends and I had no problems stacking our cups without them falling, but some of our sisters stacked cups on the cardboard without any cups below them, causing them to fall. Here are some marathon pics. The one with the gatorade cups is from last year...I didn't get a chance to take a good one yesterday with all of the rain. So here's to great physics and all of those brave marathoners!