Chapter 1-6 Physics Primer: Gravity, Energy, Electromagnetism, Relativity, and Quantum Concepts (Vocabulary Flashcards)

A set of vocabulary flashcards capturing core terms from gravity, energy, electromagnetism, relativity, and quantum concepts discussed in the notes.

Force

A push or pull on something in a specific direction.

Mass

How much of something there is; a measure of inertia (resistance to changes in motion).

Acceleration

The rate at which velocity changes with time.

Inertia

The resistance of any object to a change in its state of motion, proportional to its mass.

Gravity

A mutual attraction between masses; a force that acts at a distance and pulls objects toward each other.

Universal gravitation

Newton’s law describing the attractive force between two masses, proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.

Inverse-square law

The principle that a force decreases with the square of the distance between objects.

Centripetal force

The inward force required to keep an object moving in a circular path; gravity can provide this for orbital motion.

Weight

The force of gravity acting on a mass; depends on local gravitational strength.

Orbit

The path of a body around another due to gravitational attraction and its initial velocity.

Energy

The capacity to do work; a scalar quantity with no intrinsic direction.

Kinetic energy

Energy of motion, given by (1/2) m v^2.

Potential energy

Stored energy due to position, such as gravitational potential energy mgh.

Work

Force applied over a distance; measured in joules.

Conservation of energy

Energy cannot be created or destroyed—only transformed from one form to another.

Temperature

A measure of the average kinetic energy of atoms in a system; higher temperature means faster particle motion.

Entropy

A measure of disorder or the number of possible microscopic states; systems tend toward higher entropy.

Electric charge

Property of matter that can be positive or negative; electrons carry negative charge; neutral objects have balanced charges.

Electric current

The flow of electric charges (typically electrons) through a conductor.

Voltage

Electric potential difference that pushes charges to move; the driving force for current.

Resistance

Opposition to the flow of current; units are ohms.

Electric field

A field (E) emanating from charges that exerts force on other charges.

Magnetic field

A field (B) around magnets or moving charges that interacts with electric currents and magnetic materials.

Induction

Generation of an electric field and hence current in a conductor due to a moving magnet or changing magnetic field.

Electromagnetic wave

Radiation consisting of oscillating electric and magnetic fields that propagates through space (e.g., light).

Light

Visible electromagnetic radiation; behaves as both a wave and a particle depending on the experiment.

Photon

The quantum of light; a discrete packet of energy.

Wave-particle duality

The concept that particles can exhibit both wave-like and particle-like properties.

Speed of light

The constant speed at which light propagates in vacuum, approximately 3.0 × 10^8 meters per second.

Special relativity

Einstein’s theory stating that the laws of physics are the same in all inertial frames and that the speed of light is constant in all frames; leads to effects like time dilation and length contraction.