Search by Topic

Resources tagged with physics similar to Rational Request:

Filter by: Content type:
Stage:
Challenge level: Challenge Level:1 Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:3

There are 80 results

Broad Topics > Applications > physics

problem icon

Whose Line Graph Is it Anyway?

Stage: 5 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

Which line graph, equations and physical processes go together?

problem icon

Guessing the Graph

Stage: 4 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

Can you suggest a curve to fit some experimental data? Can you work out where the data might have come from?

problem icon

Ideal Axes

Stage: 5 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

Explore how can changing the axes for a plot of an equation can lead to different shaped graphs emerging

problem icon

Big and Small Numbers in Physics

Stage: 4 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

Work out the numerical values for these physical quantities.

problem icon

Construct the Solar System

Stage: 4 and 5 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

Make an accurate diagram of the solar system and explore the concept of a grand conjunction.

problem icon

The Power of Dimensional Analysis

Stage: 4 and 5

An introduction to a useful tool to check the validity of an equation.

problem icon

Escape from Planet Earth

Stage: 5 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

How fast would you have to throw a ball upwards so that it would never land?

problem icon

Perfect Eclipse

Stage: 4 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

Use trigonometry to determine whether solar eclipses on earth can be perfect.

problem icon

Lennard Jones Potential

Stage: 5 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

Investigate why the Lennard-Jones potential gives a good approximate explanation for the behaviour of atoms at close ranges

problem icon

Motion Capture

Stage: 3 and 4 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

Explore displacement/time and velocity/time graphs with this mouse motion sensor.

problem icon

Moving Stonehenge

Stage: 5 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

A look at the fluid mechanics questions that are raised by the Stonehenge 'bluestones'.

problem icon

Alternative Record Book

Stage: 4 and 5 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

In which Olympic event does a human travel fastest? Decide which events to include in your Alternative Record Book.

problem icon

Powerfully Fast

Stage: 5 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

Explore the power of aeroplanes, spaceships and horses.

problem icon

Big and Small Numbers in Chemistry

Stage: 4 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

Get some practice using big and small numbers in chemistry.

problem icon

A Question of Scale

Stage: 4 Short Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

Use your skill and knowledge to place various scientific lengths in order of size. Can you judge the length of objects with sizes ranging from 1 Angstrom to 1 million km with no wrong attempts?

problem icon

More Realistic Electric Kettle

Stage: 4 and 5 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

problem icon

Approximately Certain

Stage: 4 and 5 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

Estimate these curious quantities sufficiently accurately that you can rank them in order of size

problem icon

Constantly Changing

Stage: 4 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

Many physical constants are only known to a certain accuracy. Explore the numerical error bounds in the mass of water and its constituents.

problem icon

Bigger or Smaller?

Stage: 4 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

When you change the units, do the numbers get bigger or smaller?

problem icon

Choose Your Units

Stage: 4 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

Which units would you choose best to fit these situations?

problem icon

Reaction Types

Stage: 5 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

Explore the rates of growth of the sorts of simple polynomials often used in mathematical modelling.

problem icon

Electromagnetism

Stage: 5

Read all about electromagnetism in our interactive article.

problem icon

Earth Orbit

Stage: 5 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

Follow in the steps of Newton and find the path that the earth follows around the sun.

problem icon

Whoosh

Stage: 5 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

A ball whooshes down a slide and hits another ball which flies off the slide horizontally as a projectile. How far does it go?

problem icon

Universal Time, Mass, Length

Stage: 5 Short Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

Can you work out the natural time scale for the universe?

problem icon

Which Twin Is Older?

Stage: 5

A simplified account of special relativity and the twins paradox.

problem icon

Resistance

Stage: 5 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

Find the equation from which to calculate the resistance of an infinite network of resistances.

problem icon

Cobalt Decay

Stage: 5 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

Investigate the effects of the half-lifes of the isotopes of cobalt on the mass of a mystery lump of the element.

problem icon

Keep Your Momentum Going

Stage: 5 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

A look at a fluid mechanics technique called the Steady Flow Momentum Equation.

problem icon

Pumping the Power

Stage: 5 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

What is an AC voltage? How much power does an AC power source supply?

problem icon

Mach Attack

Stage: 5 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

Have you got the Mach knack? Discover the mathematics behind exceeding the sound barrier.

problem icon

Neural Nets

Stage: 5

Find out some of the mathematics behind neural networks.

problem icon

The Lorentz Force Law

Stage: 5 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

Explore the Lorentz force law for charges moving in different ways.

problem icon

Lunar Leaper

Stage: 5 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

Gravity on the Moon is about 1/6th that on the Earth. A pole-vaulter 2 metres tall can clear a 5 metres pole on the Earth. How high a pole could he clear on the Moon?

problem icon

The Not-so-simple Pendulum 1

Stage: 5 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

See how the motion of the simple pendulum is not-so-simple after all.

problem icon

Ideal Gases

Stage: 5 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

Problems which make you think about the kinetic ideas underlying the ideal gas laws.

problem icon

Gravity Paths

Stage: 5 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

Where will the spaceman go when he falls through these strange planetary systems?

problem icon

Striking Gold

Stage: 5 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

Investigate some of the issues raised by Geiger and Marsden's famous scattering experiment in which they fired alpha particles at a sheet of gold.

problem icon

Cannon Balls

Stage: 5 Short Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

How high will a ball taking a million seconds to fall travel?

problem icon

Physnrich

Stage: 4 and 5 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

PhysNRICH is the area of the StemNRICH site devoted to the mathematics underlying the study of physics

problem icon

Modelling Assumptions in Mechanics

Stage: 5

An article demonstrating mathematically how various physical modelling assumptions affect the solution to the seemingly simple problem of the projectile.

problem icon

Hold Still Please

Stage: 5 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

Can you arrange a set of charged particles so that none of them start to move when released from rest?

problem icon

Eudiometry

Stage: 5 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

When a mixture of gases burn, will the volume change?

problem icon

Diamonds Aren't Forever

Stage: 5 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

Ever wondered what it would be like to vaporise a diamond? Find out inside...

problem icon

Ancient Astronomical Terms

Stage: 3, 4 and 5

Some explanations of basic terms and some phenomena discovered by ancient astronomers

problem icon

The Ultra Particle

Stage: 5 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

Explore the energy of this incredibly energetic particle which struck Earth on October 15th 1991

problem icon

The Not-so-simple Pendulum 2

Stage: 5 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

Things are roughened up and friction is now added to the approximate simple pendulum

problem icon

New Units for Old

Stage: 5 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:2 Challenge Level:2

Can you match up the entries from this table of units?

problem icon

Go Spaceship Go

Stage: 5 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

Show that even a very powerful spaceship would eventually run out of overtaking power

problem icon

Advanced STEM

Stage: 4 and 5 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:1

Advanced problems in the mathematical sciences.


The NRICH Project aims to enrich the mathematical experiences of all learners. To support this aim, members of the NRICH team work in a wide range of capacities, including providing professional development for teachers wishing to embed rich mathematical tasks into everyday classroom practice. More information on many of our other activities can be found here.
Copyright © 1997 - 2012. University of Cambridge. All rights reserved.
NRICH is part of the family of activities in the Millennium Mathematics Project.