Our TY students attended a physics lecture with a difference in TU Dublin's Grangegorman campus this week.
Dr Robert Howard, an 8th Degree Master with the Republic of Ireland Taekwon-do Association and a Physics Lecturer in TU Dublin gave a very engaging and entertaining lecture. He explained in very accessible terms how a Taekwon-do punch can have the equivalent power of 200 microwave ovens or the same force as a cow landing on your head!
Throughout the hour long talk he introduced his audience to the vocabulary and terms associated with leaving cert physics, force, momentum, energy, Newton' Laws, acceleration, deformation and impulse. He also put the theory into practice and with the help of a few volunteers from the audience, demonstrating the power of a Taekwan-do strike by breaking pieces of timber, ceramic and concrete tiles. The boys thoroughly enjoyed the talk and it certainly gave those students with an interest in studying physics a great insight into the subject.