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Facts and Formulas 3
Facts and Formulas 3
Facts and Formulas 3
This document is a concise but comprehensive guide to the facts and formulas typically used in the material covered by the SAT Subject physics test. The test is designed to determine how well you have mastered the physics concepts taught in a typical one-year college-prep high school course. This guide is mainly intended as a reference, as opposed to a full tutorial (which would probably be book-length), and so the explanatory material is pretty brief. You can use the guide as a simple formula reference, or as a quick review of the material that youve already studied elsewhere. Either way, good luck on your Subject Test!
Math Stu
Although this guide is for the SAT Subject test in Physics, youll need to know quite a bit of math. If youre thinking that youll just use your calculator to do the math, dont forget that calculators are not allowed on the SAT Subject Physics test. Here is a summary of the really important math facts and formulas. Exponents xa xb = xa+b (xa )b = xab x =1 Scientic Notation Scientic notation is a short-hand form to write numbers which would have a lot of zeros when written as decimals. For example, instead of writing 1230000, you can just write 1.23 1000000, or 1.23 106 . The familiar powers of ten include: 103 = 0.001, 102 = 0.01, 101 = 0.1, 100 = 1, 101 = 10, 102 = 100, 103 = 1000. To go from scientic notation to a plain decimal number, move the decimal to the right or left according to the sign of the exponent, putting a zero down when you have no other digits there. For example, for 3.7 1012 , move the decimal right 12 places and add 11 zeros. Move the decimal to the left for a negative exponent.
11 zeros 0
To go from a plain decimal number to scientic notation, just move the decimal to the right or left (counting how many places you move) until there is only one digit to the left of the decimal point, then add 10n where n is the number of places you moved the decimal point (positive if you went left and negative if you went right). www.erikthered.com/tutor pg. 1
n m c k M
opposite
p hy
a adjacent
Referring to the second triangle, there are three important functions which are dened for angles in a right triangle: sin = opposite hypotenuse cos = adjacent hypotenuse tan = opposite adjacent
SOH
CAH
TOA
(the last line above shows a mnemonic to remember these functions: SOH-CAH-TOA) An important relationship to remember which works for any angle is: sin2 + cos2 = 1. Vectors Many important quantities in physics are represented by vectors, which specify both a number (the length of the vector) along with a direction (where the vector points). In contrast, scalars are simple numbers without a direction. www.erikthered.com/tutor pg. 2
Using basic trigonometry, vx = v cos (the x-component of v) vy = v sin (the y-component of v) Note from the gure that v (which is sometimes denoted explicitly by |v|, which means 2 2 the length of the vector v) is given by v 2 = vx + vy , using the pythagorean theorem. In the example above, v = 50 m/sec and = 30 , so that vx = 43 m/sec and vy = 25 m/sec. In this case, the x-component of v is greater than the y-component of v since the direction of v is closer to the x-axis (east) than it is to the y-axis (north). The easiest way to add two vectors is to add their x components to get a total x component, and separately do the same thing for the y components. Then, a new total vector can 2 2 2 be made with the two total x and y components, using vtot = vx,tot + vy,tot and = 1 tan (vy,tot /vx,tot ). Graphically, this is the same as the tip-to-tail method, as in the gure below.
y B (shifted) B
A+
B
A
Ax
Bx
Here, vectors A and B are added by moving B so that its tail is at the tip of A, and then drawing the vector from the origin to the new tip of B. It should be clear from the gure that the x components of A and (the shifted) B add up to the x component of the new vector, and similarly for the y components. www.erikthered.com/tutor pg. 3
1 (vi + vf )t 2
A note about graphs: the slope of a position vs. time graph is the velocity. Also, the slope of the velocity vs. time graph is the acceleration.
Dynamics
Dynamics is the application of Newtons Laws to determine how a mass m moves when a force (or forces) is applied. Newtons First Law is: an object which moves at a constant velocity will continue moving at the same velocity unless it is acted upon by an non-zero force. The force could be a single force, or several forces which are unbalanced (dont add to zero). Note that an object at rest has a constant velocity of zero, so it will remain at rest unless acted upon by such a force. Newtons Second Law is: the force on a mass equals the mass multiplied by the acceleration. As a formula: F = ma where F is the force vector, m is the mass, and a is the acceleration vector. It is important to remember that the force in F = ma is the sum of all the forces (often called the net force) acting on the mass, not just one particular force. The net force acting on a book www.erikthered.com/tutor pg. 4
Momentum
Momentum is dened to be the product of mass and velocity: p = mv where p is the momentum, m is the mass, and v is the velocity. Note that the momentum p and velocity v are both vectors, and they are in the same direction, since the mass m is just a positive number. The net force F acting on a mass m for an amount of time t produces a change in momentum given by p = F t. The product F t is often called the impulse. Here, the change in momentum is just p = mv = m(vf vi ), where vi is the initial velocity and vf is the nal velocity. Conservation of momentum: if there are no external forces on a system (or, the forces add to zero), then the momentum of a system is conserved , i.e., the momentum is constant. For example, consider when a rie res a bullet (in which case the system consists of the rie plus the bullet). Before ring, p = 0. Since the external forces on the system add to zero (the weight of the rie is balanced by the person holding it), then p = 0 after ring, also. Therefore, mb vb + mr vr = 0 and the recoil velocity of the rie is vr = (mb /mr ) vb . www.erikthered.com/tutor pg. 5
where m is the mass and v is the velocity. For example, when someone throws a 0.5 kg softball, the softball goes from rest (v = 0) to some velocity (say, 8 m/s). The kinetic energy of the softball has increased from zero to 1/2 0.5 kg 8 m/s2 = 16 joules, so the thrower has done +16 joules of work on the softball. When the ball is caught, the catcher must do (negative) work on the ball (namely, -16 J) to change its energy from 16 joules back to zero. Equivalently, the ball will do 16 joules of work on the catcher as it comes to a halt. The second main kind of energy is called potential energy. This energy is associated with the position of the object (for example, the height of a mass measured from the ground below) or its conguration (for example, a compressed spring). In the case of a mass m at a height h, the potential energy is PE = mgh. Just as before, work must be done on or by the object to change its energy. In this case, perhaps the mass was carried by someone on the ground up to the height h, at a constant www.erikthered.com/tutor pg. 6
Circular Motion
m v v ac ac r ac ac v m v m v Fc Fc m v m m Fc Fc v v m
When an object moves in a circle with a constant speed, the object is said to be in uniform circular motion. In the gure above, an object of mass m is moving uniformly in a circle of radius r, counter-clockwise, and the position of the mass is shown at eight dierent points www.erikthered.com/tutor pg. 7
r F
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pg. 8
Springs
A spring is a metal coil which, when stretched, pulls back on the object attached to the end of the spring. When compressed, the spring pushes against the object at the end of the spring. When not stretched or compressed, the spring is at its natural length and it doesnt exert a force on the object at all. The restoring force Fs of a spring is proportional to the amount (distance) that the spring is stretched or compressed. If this distance is x, then the restoring force is Fs = kx. The formula above is often called Hookes Law. When a spring is stretched or compressed, it has a (stored) potential energy of PEs = www.erikthered.com/tutor 1 2 kx . 2 pg. 9
where G is just a number which is always the same for every calculation, i.e., G is a constant. In metric units, the number turns out to be 6.67 1011 N m2 /kg2 , but it isnt important to know this particular number. The above mass pairs could be everything from two billiard balls (same mass) to you (very small mass) and the earth (very large mass). Notice that the force of gravity is inversely proportional to the distance of separation, and proportional to the product of the two masses. For example, if the distance between m1 and m2 were to double, then the force would be only 25% as large. If the mass of the earth were doubled, the force on you (for example) would become twice as big, i.e., you would weigh twice as much as you do now!
where r is the distance between the two charges q1 and q2 and k is a constant (about 9 109 N m2 /C2 ). Notice how similar this force law is to force law for gravitation (see the Gravity section). Charge is measured in coulombs (denoted as: C). To get an idea of what a coulomb of charge is, a typical 100 watt light bulb has about 1 C of charge passing through it each second. Instead of one charge attracting or repelling another, we can think of either charge as generating an electric eld . Then, any other charge, when placed in this eld, will feel a force (again, either attractive or repulsive). The electric eld is dened to be the force on the second charge (often called a test charge) divided by the test charge amount. If the rst charge is q and the test charge qt feels a force Ft , then the electric eld produced by q is: Ft . E= qt Using Coulombs Law, with q1 = q and q2 = qt , then we see that the electric eld due to q is: q E = k 2. r www.erikthered.com/tutor pg. 10
where d is the distance of separation between the plates. The electric eld points from the plate connected to the batterys positive terminal to the other plate, and shows which way a positive test charge would move if placed in that eld (i.e., away from the positive plate!).
Circuits
In a circuit, a certain amount of charge per unit time, called the current (denoted by I), ows past any given point in the circuit. The voltage V , say due to a battery in the circuit, is equal to the work done by the battery per unit charge. These two quantities, voltage and current, are proportional to one another, as related by Ohms Law: V = IR. The constant of proportionality R is called the resistance in the circuit. For a given voltage V , a low resistance corresponds to a high current and a high resistance corresponds to a low current, since I = V /R. An analogy can be made to a waterfall: the current in a circuit is just like the amount (current) of water falling down, and the voltage in a circuit is similar to the height of the waterfall. The voltage can be high with low current (imagine a tall waterfall with just a trickle of water), or the voltage can be low with high current (a short waterfall with a large current of water), depending on the resistance (kind of similar to rocks in the stream). The power, or energy per unit time, dissipated in a resistor R is: P = IV = V2 = I 2 R, R
where Ohms Law was used to substitute for I or V in P = IV. You can use whichever formula requires the quantities that you are given. If two or more resistors are placed in series, the total resistance is the sum: Rs = R1 + R2 + . . . , where Rs is called the series resistance. Note that the series resistance is always bigger than the biggest of the individual resistances. If two or more resistors are placed in parallel, the total resistance is the inverse of the sum of the inverses: 1 1 1 = + + ..., Rp R1 R2 www.erikthered.com/tutor pg. 11
The magnitude of the magnetic eld around a long wire is inversely proportional to the distance from the wire. In the diagram, this is denoted by drawing the eld lines closer together near the wire. Not only do current-carrying wires produce a magnetic eld, they also feel a force when placed within another magnetic eld (being produced by something else, perhaps another current-carrying wire). The magnitude of the force depends on how much current is in www.erikthered.com/tutor pg. 12
B (externally produced)
B (externally produced)
In the above diagram, a uniform magnetic eld is being externally produced and points up. The current in the wire on the left is into the page (so that = 90 ), and the force on the wire (due to the magnetic eld that is being applied to it) is directed to the right. The current in the wire on the right is out of the page, and so the force on the wire is directed to the left. See if you can use the second form of the right-hand rule to verify the directions of the forces shown in the diagram.
B B
F q
The situation is very similar for a single point charge moving in a magnetic eld. In the diagram above, the magnetic eld is everywhere pointing into the page; a positive charge (q > 0) on the left is moving with speed v to the right (so that = 90 ), and another positive charge on the right is moving to the left with the same speed. In general, the magnitude of the force on the charge is F = qvB sin where q is the charge, B is the magnetic eld, v is the magnitude of the velocity of the charge, and is the angle between the direction of travel of the charge and the magnetic www.erikthered.com/tutor pg. 13
y peak v A x A trough
In contrast to mechanical waves, electromagnetic waves can travel with or without a medium. Familiar examples include light and energy from the sun, radio waves, and the microwave signals sent from GPS satellites to a portable navigation device or mobile www.erikthered.com/tutor pg. 14
undeected
refracted
When light bounces (reects) o a shiny surface, the angle of incidence equals the angle of reection. By convention, the angle is measured with respect to the normal (a line drawn perpendicular) to the reective surface. In the diagram above, the normal is the dashed vertical line in the middle, and the law of reection tells us that 1 = 1 . When light travels from one medium (say, air) to another (say, glass), it bends (refracts). This is due to the fact that light travels at dierent speeds in dierent media. In any medium other than vacuum, light travels more slowly than 3 108 m/s. Specically, v = c/n where v is the speed of light in the medium, c is the speed of light in vacuum, and n is a number called the index of refraction for the medium. For example, the index of refraction for typical glass is n = 1.5, which means that the speed of light in glass is about (3 108 m/s)/1.5 = 2 108 m/s. The incident angle and refracted angle (again, measured from the normal) are related by Snells Law: n1 sin 1 = n2 sin 2 , www.erikthered.com/tutor pg. 16
light
light
light
light
convex mirror
concave mirror
For a converging lens or concave mirror, f is the distance from the lens or mirror to the place where these rays will converge after focussing. An image is formed where the light rays converge after going through the lens or getting reected from the mirror. A diverging lens and convex mirror make the parallel light rays diverge, so that no real image is formed. If do is the distance from the object to the lens, and di is the distance from the lens to the image, then 1 1 1 + = do di f relates these distances to the focal length of the mirror or lens. When using this formula (called the thin-lens formula), the signs of the quantities involved are very important. For converging lenses or concave mirrors, f > 0, whereas for a diverging lenses and convex mirrors, f < 0. If the resulting image distance di is negative, the image is not real (the light wasnt focussed). We can see these virtual images nonetheless because our eyes are fooled into thinking that the diverging rays are being produced by an image located www.erikthered.com/tutor pg. 17
where di and do are the image and object distances as usual (signs included). The sign of m tells us the orientation of the image compared to the object: If m < 0, the image is inverted compared to the object; if m > 0, the image is the same orientation as the object. Since do > 0, the magnication formula suggests that virtual images (di < 0) are upright compared to the object, whereas real images (di > 0) are inverted. The absolute value of the magnication describes how big the image is compared to the object, i.e., image size . |m| = object size Here, the image can be bigger (|m| > 1) or smaller (|m| < 1) than the object size. Type of Lens/Mirror concave mirror or converging lens diverging or convex lens/mirror The table above shows the dierent image outcomes that occur depending the objects distance from the lens. You do not need to memorize this table; however, see if you can verify each row of the table using the lens formula. For example, let f = 50 cm. If do = 50 cm, the lens formula tells us that 1/di = 0, so that the image distance is at innity (i.e., no image is formed). Check the second row of the table by setting do = 100 cm. any di < do no yes smaller Object Distance do > 2f do = 2f f < do < 2f do = f do < f Image Distance f < di < 2f di = 2f di > 2f no image di > do Real Image? yes yes yes no Upright Image? no no no yes Image Size smaller same bigger bigger
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pg. 18