Dirt Lifter | Craig of the Creek High School AU

Friction? More like Frick-you

A horizontal force of 8 N is applied to a 4 kg block resting on a rough horizontal surface. It starts accelerating at 1 m/s squared. If the force is doubled to 16 N, what is the acceleration of the block?

Okay, if the net force is the applied force minus the frictional force, like Bobby had told him, then that needs to equal the mass of the object times the acceleration. So that means Bobby actually knows what he's doing, unlike him. 8 minus frictional force equals a number. Then make it 16. He's 16. He's going to be 18 soon. Where is he going to live when he grows up? There are houses selling by the pool, but they're huge. If he became an engineer, he could afford them. But why would he want to live in a big empty mansion, anyway? He would need to fill it up with something. Inventions? But how is he going to invent something if he doesn't understand friction force? Jason's house is huge, and his step-mom had all those chihuahuas. He didn't like chihuahuas, though. Maybe instead, he'll get a bunch of poodles to fill space.

"...No," Craig said to himself. He didn't even remember what the problem said, only ideas of numbers and directions.

Like vectors, which have direction and magnitude, his brain supplied.

That wasn't even from his physics class. That's from a movie.

He put his head on his desk, right on top of the worksheet.

Leave it to half of his teachers to assign tests the week before winter break. He had an English oral presentation Friday, which he was not even thinking about because he could just read off a script for it. Spanish, which he was kind of worried about, because he had no idea how to conjugate the irregular verbs they were going to use in the writing portion of the test. And physics, which was so far engraved into his frontal lobe that he may just die from rereading this problem for the fifth time. This was worth 30% of his semester grade. That should have given him enough motivation to focus, if only for a few more hours, but his mind keeps wandering off to useless ideas.

Jason was lucky. He left early for vacation and he wouldn't do any of these stupid tests until after break.

They're not stupid tests, Craig thought. They're actually really hard.

A lot of people were leaving for winter break. Kelsey, Stacks, Vanessa and Kit were all leaving Maryland. Mr. Gaudi, his math teacher, was going to Mexico! And he was going to be stuck in town with nobody to hang out with. He was already dreading how bored he'll be. Whatever schoolwork that needed to be done would fill his time, but he already knew he'll be sleeping a lot, too.

It's a taste of college, he thought for a split second, with no friends, only studying and homework as far as the eye can see.

The thought was so bitter that he forced himself to focus on his practice questions again.

Fnet = ma

Fnet = 4

Fnet = F + Ff = 8 + Ff = 4

Ff = -4

Fnet = 16 + Ff = 16 - 4 = 12

Fnet = ma = 4a = 12 = 4(3)

a = 3 m/s

Okay, done. Next question.

Three blocks of masses m, 2m and 3m, rest on a level horizontal surface and are joined in sequence by string as shown in the diagram. A constant force F pulls the block of mass 3m to the right. Assuming no friction, what is the ratio of the tension in...

...What did that even mean? He didn't learn anything about tension between objects in class. Was this going to be on the test? Why would she give these practice problems if it wasn't even relevant?

"What..." he muttered out. "...the hell?"

Craig looked at the clock above him. It's 10:35 pm. Later than he expected.

Maybe if he stared at it long enough, it would start moving backwards.

It turned 10:36 pm.

He got up from his desk and swiped all the papers he was working on into a pile. He shoved them into his backpack. Then he walked across the room and turned off the lights.

Craig didn't fall asleep for another hour. Just another example of him wasting precious time he could never get back.

He failed the physics test.

Not really. He passed on a D. The stupid tension problem that made him go to bed in the first place wasn't on the test but dynamic and static friction were, and he got none of those questions right. It's not a nice look to get a D on a test worth 30% of his semester grade, but he can ask Mrs. Pacquiao for a retake after break.

At least he had a break. He didn't have to worry about school for a while. He could step away from all of the practice problems and presentations and focus on himself. He could be lazy for a while, and get nothing useful or productive done. He could sit around and wait for time to flow by him while he sat there doing nothing for a while.

Somehow, that made him feel even worse.