Extra-Credit Assignment: The World Is Flat

When I first started reading this book, I thought it was going to be really boring. At certain times during the book, I was right. However, I am glad that I read it because the interesting and important points in this book make it worth reading. In addition, I learned a lot about how different our world is today compared to the 19th century thanks to technology. As Friedman says, we are now in the period Globalization 3.0, which is much different from Globalization 2.0 and 1.0. This new period of globalization is making our world flatter because of several contributing factors such as the internet, outsourcing, insourcing, and supply-chaining. What Friedman means when he says that the world is getting flatter is that the playing field is being leveled so that more and more people all over the world can compete in the global economy.
I found Friedman’s explanation about how the world’s economy can sustain itself very important. He said that if the world does go flat, America will have to create more new jobs as more and more simple jobs get outsourced to China, and therefore, more jobs in China will eventually get outsourced to another country, and etc. This means that as the world gets flatter, Americans are going to have to think more carefully about choosing jobs that won’t get outsourced or get replaced by technology, and a good solution to this problem is to think up new jobs that fit in those two categories. So in a “flat world”, its important for Americans to find a passion for something that they are good at because kids in India and China will be able to replace them in the global economy as the playing field is leveled. Lastly, we all need to be flexible to change because in a flat world, jobs are constantly being changed or outsourced, so how we learn is an important quality.
In the chapter called the “Quiet Crisis”, Friedman emphasizes that America is slowly slipping in the economy because more and more countries are becoming more competitive while we are becoming more and more lazy. While many Asian countries are stressing education, we are becoming more geared towards having fun. And if less and less Americans receive a lower education than other parts of the world, our standard of living can certainly drop. I thought this was slightly depressing because since America is at the top of the world right now, we should fight to stay at the top rather than ease our way along and drop down in the global economy.
Another chapter I thought was important is called “The Unflat World”. This chapter talks about the people who aren’t a part of the flat world yet. One of the most interesting parts of this chapter was when Friedman was talking about why the Arab-Muslim world is having trouble. First of all, many Arab-Muslim countries in the Middle-East are authoritarian and their rulers are able to stay in power because of the importance of oil to the economy rather than the importance of people to the economy. Friedman explains that countries with less natural resources tend to rely on the people to keep their economy going, but if this is not the case, then leaders won’t think about what the people want. Many Muslims are frustrated by their lack of freedom, so terrorism easily developed. Al-Qaeda was able to function well with the quiet support of many Arabs and Muslims because many Arabs and Muslims felt humiliated by America and the rest of the world for being so far ahead of them. However, the only way they can catch up with the rest of the world is to change, which many Middle-Eastern countries are reluctant to do.
Last of all, to sum up the book, Friedman explains that we need to use our imaginations in a good way and get more people to think innovatively for the good of the world rather than think of how to destroy the world.

"Waves" in Tennis

After a tennis lesson on Friday, I realized that the quickness drill I had to do has a lot to do with Physics. As shown in the picture above, the drill I did involved moving laterally (side to side). I had to start in the middle of the service box and go side to side from the middle line to the alley line. It seemed like I was moving in simple harmonic motion because each time I go from one line to the middle, I complete the amplitude of my motion and I do it again when I go to the next line because I’m moving the same distance each time. My speed doesn’t change much either, so it can be considered simple harmonic motion. My coach made me keep doing this drill until I was able to touch 22 lines in 30 seconds. That made me think about the period I had to complete to go from the middle to one line, to the other line, and then back to the first line. I would have to move the equivalent of 10.5 waves in 30 seconds, so the period of one “wave” would have to be about 2.86 seconds. On my first and second trials I only touched 21 and 20 lines, but on my last trial, I touched 22 lines and reached the goal of having a period of 2.86 seconds.

Water Falling from a Faucet

Often I’ve wondered why it feels like the force of water is stronger, the lower you put your hand under a faucet. This time, when I put my hand under the kitchen sink’s faucet, I was able to explain this “phenomena”. Because of what we just finished learning about it physics, fluid mechanics, it was easy to understand what was going on. Using the formula V1A1=V2A2, I realized that since the cross-sectional area of the falling water is smaller at a lower point under the faucet, the volume of water passing through this lower point has to be greater than the volume passing through a higher point. This helped to explain why it feels like a there’s a greater force on my hand when I put it under the lower point than under the higher point. Because there’s a bigger volume of water, or a larger amount of water, passing through the lower point, the force feels higher at this lower point than it does at the higher point. This is because the volume flow rate of a fluid has to be the same at any point; so if there’s a smaller cross-sectional area, there must be more volume, and vice versa.