Newton's Fountain

EDUCATION

BASKETBALL PROBLEM

AND

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PHYSICS,

START WITH BISMILLAH

ISLAM,

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INTERNATIONAL EDITION YEAR 2 ISSUE 1 APRIL 2013

IN THIS ISSUE

N E W TON ’S FOU NTAIN

ِ ‫ب ِْس ِم‬ ‫هللا َّالر ْ ْٰح ِن َّالر ِح ْ ِي‬

EDITOR’S NOTE Happy first anniversary to Newton’s Fountain!

This year we start to publish our e-magazine through our official website and printed annual issue is coming soon Insha Allah. However, Newton’s Fountain still will be delivered to your e-mail inbox, so don’t worry and don’t forget to visit our website and blog.

This year we hope to increase our reader’s participation to the making of the magazine, so don’t hesitate to submit your writings, photos, letters, comments, suggestions and questions to newtonsfountain@ymail.com.

May this year be a blessed year for us. And let’s start the year with bismillah.

Have a nice reading!

Nia Wardani

NEWTON’S FOUNTAIN Is bi-monthly magazine on physics, Islam, and education.

Crews Nia Metyana Wardani Sumarsih Condroayu Purbarani Annisaa Ike Rossmila

Cover photo by Chris Metcalf

Newton’s Fountain will be online soon at www.newtonsfountain.com Visit our blog Newtonsfountain.wordpress.com For further information, please contact us at newtonsfountain@ymail.com

INSIDE EDITOR’S NOTE

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INSIDE

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START WITH BISMILLAH

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BASKETBALL PROBLEM

6

START WITH BISMILLAH

By Nia Wardani

In the name of Allah the Most Graceful and The Most Merciful.

Start to read with the name of Allah. Start everything you do with bismillah..

Bismillah is the key of your success because when you start with the name of Allah, all of Allah’s creatures will help you to reach your purpose. Without bismillah you are all alone.

With bismillah, the weather will help you, the people will be kind to you, and Allah will

Prophet Muhammad (saw) said: “One who does not say Bismillah before wudhu, his wudhu is incomplete.” [Tirmidhi]

be pleased with you, Insha Allah.

Think of this illustration.

There are two students having a complicated task to make an observation with the largest telescope in the world. The first student went to the observatory. He introduced himself by his own name. He refused to mention his university or his project supervisor. He said, “The observation is my business. I work alone for my own project.”

The second student went to the observatory with a letter from his university and a recommendation from his supervisor. He said, “I come from “A” university.

I want to do the observation for our project supervised by “M” professor.”

Which one do you think will get the opportunity to have the observation schedule?

Of course the second one. He would have the opportunity, he would be helped by the operator, and maybe he would get a free cup of coffee.

Similar thing would happen if we do everything by stating the name of Allah. Saying bismillah means, I do this in the name of Allah, to get His blessing. Of course the nature that always obeys Him will help you, the people will help you too, the angels would pray for your success too. If stating “A” university would make your tasks easier, imagine what you can benefit from stating the Owner of all things in the world and in the sky! I am sure you will get more than a free coffee.

So say bismillah before you do something. May Allah be pleased with your work.

Picture bu Ayaat Team

BASKETBALL PROBLEM

By Nia Wardani

Asking a friend, “Which topic in physics you like most?” she answered, “Sorry, but I dislike all.” Well, I should change my question then, “Which one you dislike the most?” She answered, “Umm..the basketball player’s problem.”

The term basketball player’s problem might not be familiar to your ears, but what my friend means is a simple classic problem of Newton’s Law of Gravity. A basketball player should throw the ball at the certain angle and certain velocity so that the ball will enter the basket. The

height of the basket is given as y and the average height of basketball players is given as, say h. The ball is thrown at an angle q with the surface of the Earth (let it be plane). Let’s set our coordinate system as in the figure and find the components of the initial velocity, Vox parallel to x axis and Voy parallel to y axis.

Since there is no force applied to the ball along x axis, hence no acceleration horizontally the motion involves to acceleration. The distance in x coordinate is simply the multiplication of the initial velocity and time.

As we see along y axis we, unfortunately, have gravitational force downward. Hence, according to Newton’s Second Law of Motion stating force could make an object with mass move with certain acceleration invites the very popular gravitational acceleration g comes into the equations.

That is all the logic. The rest is just mathematics. Put the values into the equation. Find the unknowns.

This comes to be simple to undergraduate physics students, but don’t laugh, we can make this problem a lot harder. Involving air resistance, wind, rotation of the ball, the rotation of the Earth, the revolution of the Earth towards the Sun, the revolution of our solar system towards the center of the Milky Way, and the motion of the Milky Way as the universe is expanding, not to mention relativity and any undiscovered theories, we would be surprised that the basketball player would have probability to throw his ball into the basket. In fact, this is the case with the real world. There are lots of aspects to consider that we should be more surprised for many basket-

ball players can precisely do their shoots as if their muscles know how to do physics themselves.

You can argue that all movements in the universe are already contained in the equations. However, can’t you imagine what is happening in the outer space? The space is not that quiet! Stars are formed, gases are injected, meteors here and there, novas and thunder storm everywhere...

Praise be to God, the Creator of the Universe!

The most complicated mechanism can be simplified to a basketball game, but also most challenging problem of physics at the same time. If you ask a basketball player how to give the correct velocity for every shoot, he might say, “Just practice, you will know how.”

Photo by Mirza Mujagic

JOIN US !

SUBMIT YOUR ARTICLE TO newtonsfountain@ymail.com

For what purpose, dear reader, do you study physics?

To use it technologically? Physics can be put to use; so can art and music. But that’s not why you study them.

It isn’t their social relevance that attracts you.

The most precious things in life are the irrelevant ones. It is a meager life, indeed, that is consumed only by the relevant, by the problems of mere survival.

You study physics because you find it fascinating. You find poetry in conceptual structures. You find it romantic to understand the workings of nature. You study physics to acquire an intimacy with nature’s way.

- Marvin Chester -