[The First Blog] Kinematics.

       Yesterday, as I took a break from taking history notes, I stopped to think about what to write for this blog (yes, simple as this first concept may seem, I had to think about it). But nonetheless, I eventually got somewhere. I knew that I would be attending the UH versus UCLA volleyball match in the evening, so as a newly "physics-literate" person, I began thinking about the movement of the ball - and the physics behind it - as it makes its way around the court. I tried to focus on applying physics during a serve because that seemed easiest to capture in a picture, but after several failed attempts, I concluded that I am not a good photographer, and hopefully my application of physics proves more successful. So here it goes:
       As the ball is tossed into the air, even though it is moving in the positive direction, it experiences decreasing velocity because the force of gravity, -9.8 m/s², is pulling it down. When it reaches the top of its trajectory, the ball has a velocity of 0.0 m/s before it begins to make its way back toward the earth. As it comes back down, the ball’s speed increases at the same rate at which it was decreasing on its way up (since acceleration, which is gravity in this case, remains constant).  However, even though speed is increasing, the direction in which the ball is traveling is negative, and thus, since velocity is a vector, the ball is still experiencing decreasing velocity. [Yay! The first blog -- completed. :)]