Physics 30

Unit 1: Momentum & Impulse

The physics of collisions and explosions — momentum as "mass in motion", the impulse that changes it, and the great conservation law that lets you predict what happens when things crash, bounce or fly apart, in one dimension and two.

• Momentum as a vector
• Impulse and change in momentum
• Momentum conservation (qualitative)
• Momentum conservation in 1-D and 2-D
• Elastic vs inelastic collisions

Unit 2: Forces & Fields

The forces that act across empty space — electric charge and Coulomb's law, the electric field and potential that reshape "action at a distance" into a field, and magnetism: how moving charges make magnetic fields and how those fields push back on moving charges and currents.

• Conservation of charge
• Attraction and repulsion of charges
• Charging by conduction and induction
• Charge distribution on conductors and insulators

• Coulomb's torsion balance experiment
• Applying Coulomb's law to two charges
• Net electric force from multiple charges
• Inverse-square: Coulomb vs gravitation

• Defining vector fields
• Comparing forces and fields
• Gravitational vs electric potential energy
• Electric potential difference
• Potential difference in a uniform field

• Electric field intensity and direction
• Defining electric current
• Charge motion in a uniform field
• Electrical interactions and energy conservation
• Millikan's oil-drop experiment

• Magnetic interactions as forces and fields
• Comparing gravitational, electric and magnetic fields
• Oersted, Faraday and electromagnetism
• A moving charge as a field source
• Magnetic force on a moving charge

• Charge in combined magnetic and electric fields
• Fields on charges and current-carrying wires
• Force on a current-carrying conductor
• Moving a conductor in a magnetic field

Unit 3: Electromagnetic Radiation

Light as an electromagnetic wave — how accelerating charges radiate, the full spectrum from radio to gamma, and the classic wave behaviours (reflection, refraction, diffraction, interference) that prove light is a wave. Then the twist: the photon and the photoelectric effect reveal light is also a particle.

• Accelerating charges produce EMR
• The electromagnetic spectrum
• Propagation of EMR
• Measuring the speed of EMR
• Michelson-type speed calculation

• Reflection, refraction and total internal reflection
• Lenses and curved mirrors

• Diffraction, interference and polarization
• Young's double-slit and the wave model
• Double-slit and diffraction-grating problems
• Refraction supports the wave model
• Grating vs prism spectra

• The photon and its energy
• Classifying the spectrum by photon energy
• The photoelectric effect
• Photoelectric emission and energy conservation

• Photoelectric effect and duality
• The Compton effect

Unit 4: Atomic & Nuclear (Modern) Physics

How we learned what atoms are made of — from cathode rays and the electron to Rutherford's nucleus and the quantum model that explains spectra. Then inside the nucleus: radioactivity, half-life, fission and fusion, mass–energy equivalence, and the modern particle zoo of quarks and leptons.

• Matter contains discrete charges
• Cathode rays and atomic models
• Thomson's experiment
• Rutherford's scattering experiment

• Why the classical atom fails
• Each element has a unique line spectrum
• Continuous, emission and absorption spectra
• Stationary states explain spectra
• Energy difference between states

• Electron diffraction and de Broglie
• Two-slit electron interference

• Alpha, beta and gamma radiation
• Writing nuclear decay equations
• Half-life calculations
• Conservation of charge and mass number

• Fission versus fusion
• Mass defect and released energy

• Particle tracks and discovery
• The strong force and accelerators
• The quark model of nucleons
• Comparing fundamental particles
• Beta decay with elementary fermions