Commonly asked questions in physics

Abstract

Classical Mechanics What Is Physics? What Is the SI System of Units? What Are Velocity and Acceleration? What Is a Force? What Are Work and Energy? What Is Momentum Conservation? What Is Simple Harmonic Motion? What Are Torque and Angular Momentum? What Is Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation? Can Classical Mechanics Explain Everything? Electromagnetism and Electronics What Are Electric Charges, and How Do They Affect Each Other? What Is an Electric Field? What Is Electric Potential? What Is a Capacitor? What Are Electric Current and Resistance? What Are Semiconductors? What Are Superconductors? What Are Magnetic Dipoles and Magnetic Fields? What Is Electromagnetism? What Are Direct Current and Alternating Current? How Do Electric Motors Work? What Is an Electromagnetic Wave? Solids and Fluids What Are the States of Matter? What Is a Fluid? What Are Transverse and Longitudinal Waves? How Is Sound Generated? How Are Music and Musical Harmonies Made? What Is the Doppler Effect? What Makes a Sonic Boom? Quantum Mechanics What Is Quantization? What Is WaveParticle Duality? What Is the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle? What Does Quantum Mechanics Tell Us about Hydrogen Atoms? What Is Quantum Tunneling? What Is a Quantum Computer? What Are Some Other Applications of Quantum Mechanics? Light and Optics What Is Light? What Is the Law of Reflection? What Is Refraction? How Do Lenses Work? What Are Some Common Refractive Vision Disorders, and How Are They Corrected with Lenses? How Do Microscopes Work? How Do Telescopes Work? How Does Interference Reveal Light's Wave Properties? What Is Diffraction? What Is Polarization, and Why Is It Useful? Why Is the Sky Blue? How Do Lasers Work, and What Makes Them Different from Other Light Sources? What Is a Light-Emitting Diode? What Is a Solar (Photovoltaic) Cell? Thermodynamics What Is Temperature? What Is the Kinetic Theory of Gases? What Is Thermal Expansion? What Are the Units for Thermal Energy, Heat, and Food Energy? What Are Heat Capacity and Specific Heat? What Are Phase Changes? What Is the First Law of Thermodynamics? What Is the Second Law of Thermodynamics? What Is a Heat Engine? What Are Quantum Statistics? How Cold Can You Get? Atoms and Nuclei Atoms and ElementsWhat Are They? What Is the RutherfordBohr Model of the Atom? What Are Atomic Orbitals and Shells? How Are X-Rays Produced? What Are the Basic Properties of Nuclei? What Is the Strong (Nuclear) Force? How Are Nuclei Bound by the Nuclear Force? What Is Nuclear Binding Energy? What Are the Benefits and Dangers of Radioactive Nuclei? What Is Fission? What Is Fusion? Fundamental Particles and Forces What Are Fundamental and Composite Particles? What Are the Historical Roots of the Search for Fundamental Particles? What Is Antimatter? What Is the Particle Zoo? How Do Particles Mediate Forces? What Are Quarks? What Are Leptons? What Is the Weak Force? What Is a Feynman Diagram? What Conservation Laws Are Associated with Hadrons and Leptons? What Is the Higgs Boson? What Is Unification? Relativity What's the Difference between Special Relativity and General Relativity? How Was Special Relativity Developed? What Are the Two Principles (or Postulates) of Special Relativity? How Are Time and Distance Measurements Affected in Relativity? What Is Spacetime? How Are Velocity Measurements Affected by High Speeds? What Is the Doppler Effect? What Is Relativistic Energy? How Is Relativity Connected to Electromagnetism? What Is the Principle of Equivalence? How Does General Relativity Describe Gravity? What Are Some Consequences of General Relativity? What Is a Black Hole? What Are Gravitational Waves? How Do We Use Relativity? So Is Everything Really Relative? Astrophysics and Cosmology What Are Astronomy, Astrophysics, and Cosmology? How Was Our Solar System Formed? What Are the Orbits of the Planets? What Other Objects Are in the Solar System? What Are Stars? What Is a Supernova? What Are Galaxies? How Has the Universe Evolved in Time? What Are Dark Matter and Dark Energy? Where Do We Go from Here? Index Further Readings appear at the end of each chapter.