Physics 12

Unit 1: Frames of Reference & Special Relativity

Every measurement of motion is made relative to a chosen frame of reference — from a boat crossing a moving river to the strange consequences that appear when a frame moves close to the speed of light. Includes the graphical-methods toolkit physicists use to extract relationships from data throughout the course.

• What a frame of reference is
• Relative motion within a stationary frame

• Einstein's postulates of special relativity
• Time dilation in a moving frame
• Length contraction and relativistic mass in a moving frame

• Graphing linear, exponential, and inverse relationships
• Linear regression, slope, interpolation, and area under the curve

Unit 2: Equilibrium & Circular Motion

Forces that balance keep an object at rest, while forces held toward a centre keep it turning in a circle. Static equilibrium and uniform circular motion both come from careful force analysis — including the traditional technologies First Peoples engineered around these same principles.

• Translational static equilibrium
• Rotational equilibrium, torque, and centre of gravity

• Centripetal force and acceleration
• Changes to apparent weight in vertical and horizontal circles

• First Peoples applications of forces in traditional technologies

Unit 3: Fields: Gravitational, Electric & Magnetic

Mass, charge, and moving charge each create a field reaching through the space around them, exerting a force on and storing potential energy in anything else placed within that field — from a dropped stone, to a charged particle in an accelerator, to the current a spinning magnet induces.

• The gravitational field
• Newton's law of universal gravitation

• Gravitational potential energy

• Gravitational dynamics and energy relationships

• The electric field
• Coulomb's law

• Electric potential energy
• Electric potential and potential difference

• Electrostatic force dynamics on a point charge
• Energy-method analysis of an accelerated charge

• The magnetic field
• Magnetic force and the right-hand rules

• Faraday's law: magnitude of the induced EMF
• Lenz's law: direction of the induced current

• Applications: motors, generators, transformers

Unit 4: Momentum & Collisions

Momentum is conserved whenever objects interact in a closed and isolated system — whether a force acts briefly as an impulse, or two objects collide and bounce, stick, or scatter.

• Impulse and momentum

• Elastic and inelastic collisions in 1D
• 2D collisions and ballistic pendulums

Unit 5: Lab Numeracy (Accuracy and Precision)

The one Curricular Competency taught directly rather than woven: significant figures, measurement uncertainty, and scientific notation are separately-learnable, separately-quizzable lab-numeracy skills, pitched here to the multi-step field and relativistic calculations this course demands.

• Significant figures in multi-step field and relativistic calculations

• Propagating uncertainty and scientific notation in derived values