It Won't Be That Bad

Ch 6

"Okay, before I close class early today, do you have any questions?" The bespectacled man with graying blonde hair said to all the students in the class, staring at everyone present carefully.

Noah just cradled his chin with the back of his hand while looking at Mr Ferdinand, his mind was wandering to useless things right now. Like, if he hadn't died, would his blonde hair have faded and turned gray like that one lecturer of his who stood up in front of the students? Would wrinkles appear on his face? But, Aaron didn't look like that despite them being the same age. Aaron actually looked like a man in his thirties. Did Aaron wear something to keep him young? Was Aaron also exposed to the same doctrine as his father-in-law's family? He wondered.

If Mr Ferdinand, who was almost fifty-five years old, has aged, why not Aaron? Was it because of his family genes? If he didn't die, would he look like his cousin? Were his mother's family genes really that strong?

"Alexander!"

Noah gasped in surprise, the hand supporting his chin immediately fell when he heard Mr Ferdinand's call. "Yes, Professor?"

"I asked if you could answer Harley's question." Mr Ferdinand raised an eyebrow while glaring him straight in the eye, Noah gulped—damn he didn't hear the question from his classmate earlier. It seemed Mr Ferdinand was aware of that. "It looks you weren't listening," his cheeks heated briefly when Mr Ferdinand paused his sentence, "Harley asked, the force required to move an object up a plane will be minimum if the angle is less than, or equal to, or greater than the angle of friction?"

His brain put aside all theories about aging in the mother's family genes, a few seconds later he answered. "Equal of."

Kingston right away raised his hand. "Permission to answer, Professor," he said to Mr Ferdinand, who then nodded in response to his permission. "The angle should be less than, not equal of," he said while glancing at Noah who was frowning. "Think logically if something is placed horizontally and something is at a slope where a greater force is needed. Just imagine if you have to pull a load on a plane. Which is easier? On an inclined plane or horizontal plane. Surely the answer lies in the horizontal plane. So, the angle must be less than the friction angle."

Noah raised his hand after Kingston argued. "If a force acts on an object to move that object, then friction will definitely occur in the opposite direction, in the same plane. So the angles are the same size. Equal."

"Even though like that—"

"I'm not done talking yet, Kingston." Noah narrowed his red eyes sharply.

"Please continue, Alexander," Mr Ferdinand intervened.

Noah nodded. "Now coming to the logic that one of you gave earlier that "think logically if something is placed horizontally and something is at a slope where a greater force is needed" it must be horizontal. You have to remember that the friction angle has nothing to do with the slope. This also applies when the object is on a flat surface. The friction angle is the angle between the reaction and static friction force components." Noah folded his arms in front of his chest while glaring at Kingston who was gritting his teeth in annoyance.

"This will be easier and require a minimum force that can be applied to the object, if and only if the angle is smaller. It tends to move more when the angle is the same as the friction angle," Kingston replied quickly, refuting Noah's statement.

"If an object is tilted at an angle, say a, then the force required to lift it upwards is a function of the tilt angle and friction. The equation is given by p equals w in brackets sin(a) + u cos (a). Where u equals tan@ equals friction or reaction force. Now insert u = tan@ into the p equation and take the values a is greater than @, a is equal to @, and a is less than @ and you can observe that p is minimum when a is equal to @." Noah raised his eyebrows to find Kingston's face slowly turning red, he continued. "Which is Kingston, the first angle, namely the angle of inclination and the angle of friction, is the same. The second angle we talk about is the angle of attraction of the force with respect to the plane. It should be the same as the plane of the corner so that it takes less effort to pull it."