52 cards
Physics is the fundamental natural science concerned with matter, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related concepts of energy and force. To describe these phenomena quantitatively, physicists rely on a shared system of measurement: the Système International d'Unités, or SI. The seven base SI unit...
The behavior of objects under the influence of forces is described by Newton's three laws of motion. The first law, sometimes called the law of inertia, states that an object at rest remains at rest, and an object in motion continues with constant velocity, unless acted upon by a net external force. This property of re...
When a force acts on an object that moves, it does work. The work done by a constant force is defined as the product of the magnitude of the force, the magnitude of the displacement, and the cosine of the angle between them, so that \(W = Fd\cos\theta\). Work is a scalar quantity measured in joules, where one joule equ...
Linear momentum is the product of an object's mass and its velocity, written as \(\vec{p} = m\vec{v}\), and is a vector quantity whose direction matches the direction of motion. When a net force acts on an object, the change in momentum over a time interval equals the impulse delivered. In any closed system where no ex...
Temperature describes the state of thermal equilibrium between systems. Two common scales are used in physics. The Celsius scale fixes the freezing point of water at 0 °C and the boiling point at 100 °C, while the Kelvin scale is the absolute thermodynamic scale with its zero at absolute zero, the lowest possible tempe...
A wave is a disturbance that propagates through space and time, transferring energy from one place to another without any net transport of matter. Waves are characterized by their wavelength, frequency, and speed. Two main types of waves are distinguished by the direction in which the medium's disturbance occurs relati...
Light is an electromagnetic wave, and its interaction with matter is described by a small number of rules. When light strikes a smooth surface such as a mirror, it reflects such that the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection. When light passes from one medium into another, it changes speed, and this speed c...