1. Why Study Physics?
Any ideas?

2. An understanding of the world around you

3. Innovation and invention to make your life easier

4. Develop your analytical skills

5. You will always win that argument

6. It opens many opportunities in and out of the sciences

7. Where can I go with Physics?

8. Lets talk money

9. What’s in the course? AS91168 4 Internal AS91189 3 AS91170 External
Topic
Credits
How Assessed
AS91168
2.1 Carry out a practical physics investigation that leads to a non- linear mathematical relationship 4
Internal
AS91189
2.2 Demonstrate understanding of physics relevant to a selected context 3
AS91170
2.3. Demonstrate understanding of waves
External
AS91171
2.4 Demonstrate understanding of mechanics 6
AS91172
2.5 Demonstrate understanding of atoms and radioactivity
AS91173
2.6 Demonstrate understanding of electricity and electromagnetism
Total Possible Credits 26

10. What’s the plan? Term 1 Term 2 Term 3 Term 4 Content Important Dates
Review Mathematical and Practical Skills
2.4 Mechanics
Practise 2.1
Week 8
Practise 2.4
Week 10
Term 2
2.3 Waves
2.5 Atomic Physics
2.2 Physics in Context
Week 5
2.2 / 2.5 Internals (3+3 credits)
Due week 10
MID YEAR EXAM: MECHANICS, WAVES, ATOMIC – week 8
Term 3
2.6 Electricity
2.1 Investigative Physics
2.1 Internal (4 credits)
Week 3
ALL RESITS
Week 11
END OF YEAR EXAM: MECHANICS, WAVES, ELECTRICITY – week 10
Term 4
Revision for external exams
Study leave
NCEA Physics Exam

11. Maths Skills You need good algebra to rearrange equations
You need trigonometry to deal with angles
You need good graph skills to show relationships
You need knowledge of standard form to deal with very big and very small numbers

12. Algebra Most equations can be put into a triangle: P = IV 
Others need the algebra rules to rearrange: a2 = b2 + c2 P V I

13. Practise Rearranging Equations

14. Trigonometry Life doesn’t always occur horizontally...
SOH CAH TOA will guide you

15. Practise Trigonometry

16. Graphs – what is the point?
Graphs prove a relationship between two variables:
What are the dependent and independent variables?
Describe the relationship.

17. Plot these graph and describe the relationship
Mass (g)
Volume (cm3)
8.4
1.0
17.1
2.0
25.5
3.0
34.2
4.0
42.3
5.0
51.0
6.0
Distance (m)
Time (s) 2 1 8 18 3 32 4 50 5
What I should see:
Correctly scaled axes (that fill the page)
Axes labelled with symbol/quantity AND unit
Points all plotted correctly with ‘x’ or ‘o’
Line or curve of best fit

18. Common Relationships in Physics
Linear :
Square:
Inverse:
Inverse squared:

19. Proportional:∝ Linear Relationships: distance ∝ velocity
voltage ∝ current
Square relationships:
Energy ∝ velocity2
Inverse relationships:
Frequency ∝1/period of oscillation
Acceleration ∝ 1 / mass
Inverse squared relationships:
Gravitational Force ∝ 1 / radius2

20. Graph Skills Describe the relationship between Frequency and Voltage
Form an equation for this line by calculating the gradient and y-intercept.

21. Standard or Scientific Notation
Do you know this number, 300,000,000 m/s?
It's the Speed of light !
How about this one, kg. ?
This is the mass of a dust particle!
Scientists have developed a shorter method to express very large numbers. This method is based on powers of the base number 10.
The number 123,000,000,000 in scientific notation is written as:
Coefficient
Exponent

22. How do you do it? Drop the point after the first non zero number
Count the number of places from the point till the end of the number to get the exponent.
Numbers less smaller than 1 will have a negative exponent. A millionth of a second is: sec. Write this in standard notation.

23. Practise these
4050

24. Powers of 10 Prefix Number Power Giga, G 1 000 000 000 109 Mega, M
106
Kilo, k
1 000
103
Milli, m
0.001
10-3
Micro, μ
10-6
Nano, n
10-9
Pico, p
10-12

25. Interchangeable Numbers
Decimal
Standard Form
Prefix form kg
2.4x109 N W
450 kHz
2.99x108 m s-1
700 nm

26. Significant Figures
The first non-zero number is the first significant figure
So:
has 3 significant figures
has 1 significant figure
The number of significant figures in a calculation is dependent on the least accurate measurement:
V x 20 s = 61 V s (1.s.f)

27. How many sf?
2000
3.045 55
66.6

28. Sig Figs
a) (6.01x10-6 m) x (1x1013 s-1) = b) x = c) x =

29. Review Algebra Trigonometry Graphs Scientific Notation
Significant figures