stemNRICH : Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics enriched | |||||
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Welcome to physNRICH: the physics section of stemNRICH. This contains mathematical activities for students aged 14 - 19 designed to complement and enhance the study of physics.
Area of maths | Style | Question | Description |
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General | Image
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Big and Small Numbers in Physics | Work out estimates of the numerical values for these physical quantities. |
Dynamics | See also the Dynamics problems on the engNRICH pages | ||
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Speedo | Track the motion of this dangerous driver. | |
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Dangerous Driver | Analyse the dynamics to determine if this speeding ticket was issued in error. | |
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The Not-so-simple Pendulum 1 | See how the motion of the simple pendulum is not-so-simple after all. | |
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The Not-so-simple Pendulum 2 | Friction is now added to the approximate simple pendulum, leading to a more realistic solution. | |
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Motorbike Momentum | Look at the dynamics of the sphere of death and see the results in action on the video. | |
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Whoosh | A ball whooshes down a slide and hits another ball which flies off the slide horizontally as a projectile. How far does it go? | |
Gravitation | Image
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Cannon Balls | How high will a ball taking a million seconds to fall travel? |
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Gravity Paths | Where will the spaceman go when he falls through these strange planetary systems? | |
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Escape from Planet Earth | How fast would you have to throw a ball upwards so that it would never land? | |
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Earth Orbit | Follow in the steps of Newton and find the path that the earth follows around the sun. | |
Units in physics | Image
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Universal Time, Length, Mass | Can you work out the natural time scale for the universe? |
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New Units for Old | Give yourself an in-depth units workout by matching up these physical phenomena with their dimensions and standard units. | |
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Levels of Bohr | Look at the units in the expression for the energy levels of the electrons in a hydrogen atom according to the Bohr model. | |
Power, work and energy in physics | See also the Power, Work and Energy problems on the engNRICH pages | ||
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Lunar Leaper | How high could you pole-vault on the moon? | |
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Go, Spaceship, Go! | Show that even this powerful spaceship will eventually run out of overtaking power. | |
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Sweeping Satellite | Look at kinetic and potential energies of a planet to find out about the moment of momentum. | |
Atoms and particles | Image
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Explore the energy of this incredibly energetic particle. | |
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Striking Gold | 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. | |
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Cobalt Decay | Investigate the effects of the half-lives of the isotopes of cobalt on the mass of a mystery lump of the element. | |
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Pack Man | Work out the best packing structure to maximise the density of a metal. | |
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Lennard Jones Potential | Investigate why the Lennard-Jones potential gives a good approximate explanation for the behaviour of atoms at close ranges. | |
Electricity | See also the Electrical Engineering problems on the engNRICH pages | ||
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Resistance | How would the resistance build up in an infinite network of resistors? | |
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Pumping the Power | Look at how the power in a lightbulb varies over time. | |
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Can you arrange a set of charged particles so that none of them starts to move when released from rest? | ||
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Explore the Lorentz force law for charges moving in different ways. | ||
Fluids | Image
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Keep Your Momentum Going | Find out about the steady flow momentum equation of fluid dynamics. |
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Moving Stonehenge | Explore the transportation by river of the blocks used to make Stonehenge | |
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Poiseuille's Equation | Look at the flow of fluids down circular pipes. | |
Gas laws | See also the Gases problems on the chemNRICH pages | ||
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Various problems which make you think about the kinetic ideas underlying the ideal gas laws. | ||
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Explore how changing the axes for a plot of the gas law equations can lead to different shaped graphs emerging. | ||
Waves and oscillations | |||
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Mach Attack | Look at the wavefronts produced by aricraft as they approach and go beyond Mach 1. | |
Advanced mathematics in physics | Image
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The Real Hydrogen Atom | Dip your toe into the world of quantum mechanics by looking at the Schrodinger equation for hydrogen atoms. |
Articles | Image
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Modelling Assumptions in Mechanics | This advanced article demonstrates mathematically how various physical modelling assumptions affect the solution to the seemingly simple problem of the projectile. |
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The Power of Dimensional Analysis | Read about this very useful concept and view physical equations in a different light. | |
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Electromagnetism | Find out how Ohm's law develops and find a fundamental link to complex numbers along the way. | |
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Which Twin is Older? | A simplified account of special relativity and the twin paradox. |