Senior High School Specialized Subject: General Physics I

General Physics I is one of the specialized subjects under the Academic career track and the STEM learning strand. Some examples of the things that you will learn from taking this subject include:

• Units
• Physical Quantities
• Measurement
• Graphical Presentation
• Linear Fitting of Data
• Vectors
  • Vectors and vector addition
  • Components of vectors
  • Unit vectors
• Kinematics: Motion Along a Straight Line
  • Position, time, distance, displacement, speed
  • Average velocity, instantaneous velocity
  • Average acceleration, and instantaneous acceleration
  • Uniformly accelerated linear motion
  • Free-fall motion
  • 1D Uniform Acceleration Problems
• Kinematics: Motion in 2-Dimensions and 3-Dimensions
  • Relative motion
    • Position, distance, displacement, speed
    • Average velocity, instantaneous velocity, average acceleration, and       instantaneous acceleration in 2D and 3D
    • Projectile motion
    • Circular motion
    • Relative motion
• Newton’s Laws of Motion and Applications
  • Newton’s laws of motion
  • Inertial reference frames
  • Action at a distance forces
  • Mass and weight
  • Types of contact forces
    • Tension
    • normal force
    • kinetic and static friction
    • fluid resistance
  • Action-Reaction Pairs
  • Free-Body Diagrams
  • Applications of Newton’s Laws to single-body and multibody dynamics
  • Fluid resistance
  • Experiment on forces
  • Problem Solving using Newton’s Laws
• Work, Energy, and Energy Conservation
  • Dot or scalar product
  • Work done by a force
  • Work-energy relation
  • Kinetic energy
  • Power
  • Conservative and non-conservative forces
  • Gravitational potential energy
  • Elastic potential energy
  • Equilibria and potential energy diagrams
  • Energy conservation, work, and power problems
• Center of Mass, Momentum, Impulse, and Collisions
  • Center of mass
  • Momentum
  • Impulse
  • Impulse-momentum relation
  • Law of conservation of momentum
  • Collisions
  • Center of Mass, impulse, momentum, and collision problems
  • Energy and momentum experiments
• Integration of Data Analysis and Point Mechanics Concepts
• Rotational equilibrium and rotational dynamics
  • Moment of inertia
  • Angular position, angular velocity, angular acceleration
  • Torque
  • Torque-angular acceleration relation
  • Static equilibrium
  • Rotational kinematics
  • Work done by a torque
  • Rotational kinetic energy
  • Angular momentum
  • Static equilibrium experiments
  • Rotational motion problems
• Gravity
  • Newton’s law of universal gravitation
  • Gravitational field
  • Gravitational potential energy
  • Escape velocity
  • Orbits
  • Kepler’s laws of planetary motion
• Periodic Motion
  • Periodic motion
  • Simple harmonic motion
    • spring mass system
    • simple pendulum
    • physical pendulum
  • Damped and driven oscillation
  • Periodic motion experiment
  • Mechanical waves
• Mechanical Waves and Sound
  • Sound
  • Wave Intensity
  • Interference and beats
  • Standing waves
  • Doppler effect
• Fluid Mechanics
  • Specific gravity
  • Pressure
  • Pressure vs. depth relation
  • Pascal’s principle
  • Buoyancy and archimedes’ principle
  • Continuity equation
  • Bernoulli’s principle
• Temperature and Heat
  • Zeroth law of thermodynamics and temperature measurement
  • Thermal expansion
  • Heat and heat capacity
  • Calorimetry
  • Mechanisms of heat transfer
• Ideal Gases and the Laws of Thermodynamics
  • Ideal gas law
  • Internal energy of an ideal gas
  • Heat capacity of an ideal gas
  • Thermodynamic systems
  • Work done during volume changes
  • First law of thermodynamics Thermodynamic processes:
    • Adiabatic
    • Isothermal
    • Isobaric
    • Isochoric
  • Heat engines
  • Engine cycles
  • Entropy
  • Second law of Thermodynamics
  • Reversible and irreversible processes
  • Carnot cycle
  • Entropy

While studying, you will also be asked to demonstrate what you have learned by participating in class activities that may include the following:

• Estimating errors from multiple measurements of a physical quantity using variance
• Estimating the uncertainty of a derived quantity from the Estimatingd values
• Estimating intercepts and slopes in experimental data
• Performing addition of vectors
• Calculating directions and magnitudes of vectors
• Converting a verbal description of a physical situation involving uniform acceleration
• Interpreting displacement and velocity as areas under velocity
• Solving for unknown quantities in equations
• Calculating range, time of flight, and maximum heights of projectiles
• Planning and executing an experiment involving projectile motion
• Solving problems using Newton’s laws of motion
• Planning and executing an experiment involving forces
• Identifying discrepancies between theoretical expectations and experimental results
• Predicting motion of constituent particles for different types of collisions
• Solving problems involving center of mass, impulse, and momentum
• Calculating magnitude and direction of torque using the definition of torque as a cross product
• Solving static equilibrium problems in contexts
• Calculating quantities related to planetary or satellite motion
• Solving gravity-related problems in contexts
• Performing an experiment involving periodic motion and analyze the data
• Solving problems involving fluids in contexts
• Solving problems involving temperature, thermal expansion, heat capacity, etc.
• Solving problems involving ideal gas equations
• Calculating the efficiency of a heat engine
• Calculating entropy changes for various processes
• Solving measurement problems involving conversion of units, expression of measurements in scientific notation
• Applying Newton’s 1st law to obtain quantitative and qualitative conclusions about the contact and noncontact forces
• Applying Newton’s 2nd law and kinematics to obtain quantitative and qualitative conclusions about the velocity and acceleration of one or more bodies
• Deducing the consequences of the independence of vertical and horizontal components of projectile motion
• Exploiting analogies between pure translational motion and pure rotational motion to infer rotational motion equations
• Using Newton’s law of gravitation to infer gravitational force, weight, and acceleration due to gravity
• Performing an experiment investigating the properties of sound waves and analyze the data appropriately
• Calculating the period and the frequency of spring mass, simple pendulum, and physical pendulum

These examples only cover the scope of the specialized subjects under the Academic track and STEM learning strand. For the scope of the core and contextualized subjects under the senior high school curriculum, please refer to their respective lists.