Momentum
I spent this last weekend at Cedar Point in Ohio. The self-proclaimed Roller Coaster Capital of the World! Awesome? Absolutely.
This wasn’t my first trip there. Last October, Katy and I adventured from their home in Gambier up to Sandusky for an afternoon of screaming and eating. Despite the all-day rain and two-thirds of the rides being closed, we had an amazing time. The pictures look like a scene out of Zombieland. The place was nearly deserted. At the time, Katy was taking her Physics pre-rec and had been advised by her professor to use the roller coaster visit as an opportunity to explain the concept and application of Momentum. Needless to say, we spent more time galloping around and putting on funny hats than we did having an in-depth discussion of motion…but as I’ve been digesting this past week, month, year, and decade the idea of momentum seems strangely relevant.
To review: In classical mechanics, momentum is the product of the mass and velocity of an object. Like velocity, momentum is a vector quantity, possessing a direction as well as a magnitude.
There are all kinds of qualifications, additions, and subsequent applications to momentum as it applies to related principals, but for now we’ll leave it at that very simplified level. More so for me than for all you smarties reading this going, “Harumph! What a pansy explanation you wuss!”
Below, as some kind of culmination, are three thoughts on momentum.
MOMENTUM 1:
Relating to Mass and Velocity:
A) The heavier the object, the stronger the force.
B) The steeper the angle, the faster the fall. Or, it is better to have loved and lost/lossed.
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A) One of the most stomach wrenching moments of my 20’s was losing my Grandmother. I went through what I can only call a “blank” period, where life kept going, but it felt like I was riding along the surface, glossing over everyone and everything. Love “lossed.”
She and I were very, very close. Few relationships in my life have compared to the simple openness and unconditional love that we had for each other. She was not always an easy woman. I know I am similar in this way. We shared a knack for showing our affection rather than talking about it, for creating new traditions even days before she died. Outside of my immediate family (meaning my Mom, Dad, and Sister) she knew the most about me. In a way, more than they did, because she was just outside enough that I could confide in her, seek her guidance, her perspective, and her blunt honesty (which was never mean spirited or cruel).
After she died, part of me wished we had never been that close. Part of me wanted to shut all those doors because it would have been easier than feeling that void. That part of me was so very wrong.
While it has taken years to unpack, the force that relationship had on my life was incredible. To know that kind of love was out there, was real, and wasn’t gone forever gave me a kind of steel courage. In losing her, I gained a part of me. It pushed me up higher, it pulled me down harder, but I didn’t shatter. I thought I might. Maybe I did…but in the reassembly, all the parts of her that I loved the most became a part of me. My mass increased. My heart wept.
B) I was too blind to see what an impossibly steep peak we’d climbed. I was too sluggish and tired to understand what happened to get us there. I was too deceived to feel my way back down. The only way out must have been to fall. Love lost.
All. The. Way. Down.
When I was little, I was terrified of the high dive. I remember climbing the ladder unsteadily and clinging to the railings. Creeping out to the edge of the aqua board and looking at the water mixed with sky. I don’t actually remember jumping, but I do remember the landing. Flat on my back. Smacking the water and knocking the wind out of myself. Kicking to the surface and finding the edge of the diving pool, holding on and waiting. Waiting for the sting to go away…thinking I’d never do that again…
Fastforward twenty minutes: the webbed toes begin their climb again. Increased velocity had me hooked. I spent the rest of that summer on the high dive.
This winter, I landed in the grey Chicago cold. Flat on my back. Knocking the wind out of myself. Hanging on to anyone who would let me, waiting.
Fastforward six months: I am intrepid. I am sleek. I am nimble. I am electric. I am velocity. I am ready.
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MOMENTUM 2:
Perfectly Inelastic Collisions: Stick, don’t bounce.
Something has happened. A good, great thing.
In a paradigm where I am so used to bouncing up against the expectations and desires of another person, I have suddenly found myself sticking…
To contextualize the image, Wikipedia (yay!) does a nice job of simply explaining Inelastic Collisions using the visual metaphor of two snowballs hitting each other. They “stick” or, the collision absorbs all the momentum (transfers, physics blah blah) and ball 1 and ball 2 become, essentially non-ball 3. An elastic collision is something similar to pool balls clacking against each other. Momentum is transferred from ball 1 to ball 2. Matter is not moved, etc.
So. Sticking. Non-ball 3. A new and precious thing.
It’s awesome.
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MOMENTUM 3:
Conservation of Linear Momentum: Galilean Cannon, rebound higher.
I’ve been trying to find the least trite way to bring this blog to a close. I’ve already decided that I’m going to keep writing (Come visit me at Miss Bossy Blue Eyes, http://missbossyblueeyes.blogspot.com/) so we’re in no danger of me attempting to sum up more that is required.
Way back at the start of this project, I imagined an entirely different summation! I was going to have this year of new tricks and skills. Hilarious videos of me trying to folk dance, or pictures of some crafty new thing I did. Well. Instead you all got to look inside my brain while I unpacked and repacked one of the most bizarre years of my life.
Here’s the great part. I’d do it again in a second. Not that I WANT any of this to happen again (to anyone, ever) but the girl I am now, the freshly minted 30-year-old, is a better person for it.
Thanks, in an enormous part, to the love of my amazing friends, tolerant and inspiring co-workers, and my incredible family. Oh, and my cat. Of course.
Shout outs also go to:
Bloody mary’s
Wine
Pickles
Singing in the car
Theatre
Credit cards
FaceTime
Cheese
Kismet
Margaritas
For this portion of my reflection, I found the Galilean Cannon to be pretty damn apt. The principal here is rebound. Not “rebound” in that awful rom-com “I just need Mr. Right Now” sense. I mean the actual term describing motion transfer.
Imagine a stack of bouncy balls of ascending sizes (biggest on the bottom, smallest on top). When dropped to the ground--and of course assuming that you drop them so that they don’t go all over the floor--the smallest ball will rebound far higher than the initial drop height. You can actually try this with two balls, basketball/tennis ball say (I’m so blatantly ripping off Wikipedia right now) and see the motion transfer there too.
How fabulous is that! The ball doesn’t just bounce, it bounces HIGHER! It seems like it shouldn’t make sense, but the momentum is conserved and sent back up to the smaller ball.
Guys. I’m the smaller ball. I get to bounce off all of that. Bounce off the last 30 years. Bounce off the last 6 months. Bounce off the great. Bounce off the awful.
Bounce higher. Risk the falling.
Bounce faster. Risk the landing.
Bounce heavier. Risk the height.
As the deer in Milo and Otis puts it, “Bound and leap. Bound and leap! Let your heart lead and your feet will follow.”
Away we go then. Away we go!
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