IB11 Physics HL

Terminal speed: The constant speed attained when the resistant force becomes equal to the force pushing on the body.

Force: The action of one body on a second body

Hooke’s law: The tension in the spring is proportional to the extension or compression

Newton’s first law of motion: When the net force on a body is zero, the body will move at constant velocity.

Newton’s second law of motion: The net force on a body of constant mass is proportional to that body’s acceleration and is in the same direction as said acceleration.

Newton’s third law of motion: When a body exerts a force on another body, there will be an equal and opposite force exerted back.

Archimedes’ principle: When a body is wholly or partially submerged in fluid it experiences an upward buoyant force which is equal to the weight of liquid displaced.

Centripetal force: The force, directed towards the center of a circular orbit necessary for an object to move in said orbit.

Elastic collision: A collision where kinetic energy is conserved.

Inelastic collision: A collision where kinetic energy is not conserved.

Work done: The product of the force in the direction of the displacement multiplied by the distance travelled.

Power: The rate at which work is being done.

Temperature: A measure of the random kinetic energy of particles

Conduction: Method of heat based on collisions of electrons with atoms

Convection: Method of heat due to the rising of lower density fluids.

Convection currents: Motion of fluid as a result of differences in fluid densities.

Radiation: Method of heat from the emission of electromagnetic waves from a hot surface.

Stefan-Boltzmann law: The radiated intensity is proportional to the fourth exponent of temperature in Kelvin.

Black body: A theoretical body that absorbs all the radiation it receives and radiate the maximum possible intensity for a given temperature.

Peak wavelength: The wavelength corresponding to the peak of the black body spectrum curve.

Wien’s law: The peak wavelength is inversely proportional to the Kelvin temperature.

Albedo: The ration of reflected-to-incident intensity.

Avogadro’s hypothesis: Equal volumes of gas at the same temperature and [pressure contain the same amount of moles.

Closed system: A system that can transfer energy but not mass.

Isolated system: A system where no mass or energy can be transferred.

Entropy: A measure of a system’s disorder.

Carnot cycle: A thermodynamic cycle consisting of two isothermal and two adiabatic curve.

Critical angle: The angle at which the refracted ray from a more dense medium to a less dense medium travels along the boundary between the two media (90 degrees)

Diffraction: The spreading out of waves as they pass around an object or through an aperture.

Coherent: Two or more sources are emitting waves in phase.

Wavefront: A line showing parts of a wave that are of the same phase as each other.

Ray: Line showing the path of a wave

Standing wave: A wave formed by the superposition of two identical travelling waves in opposite directions.

Damping: The loss of energy of an oscillating system due to the presence of resistive forces.

Natural frequency: The frequency of free oscillations of a body.

Resonance: The condition in which a driving force matches the natural frequency of a body, increasing the maximum amplitude.