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Welcome to the Georgia Tech Wiki for Intro Physics. This resources was created so that students can contribute and curate content to help those with limited or no access to a textbook. When reading this website, please correct any errors you may come across. If you read something that isn't clear, please consider revising it!
Looking to make a contribution?
- Pick a specific topic from intro physics
- Add that topic, as a link to a new page, under the appropriate category listed below by editing this page.
- Copy and paste the default Template into your new page and start editing.
Please remember that this is not a textbook and you are not limited to expressing your ideas with only text and equations. Whenever possible embed: pictures, videos, diagrams, simulations, computational models (e.g. Glowscript), and whatever content you think makes learning physics easier for other students.
Source Material
All of the content added to this resource must be in the public domain or similar free resource. If you are unsure about a source, contact the original author for permission. That said, there is a surprisingly large amount of introductory physics content scattered across the web. Here is an incomplete list of intro physics resources (please update as needed).
- A physics resource written by experts for an expert audience Physics Portal
- A wiki book on modern physics Modern Physics Wiki
- The MIT open courseware for intro physics MITOCW Wiki
- An online concept map of intro physics HyperPhysics
- Interactive physics simulations PhET
- OpenStax algebra based intro physics textbook College Physics
- The Open Source Physics project is a collection of online physics resources OSP
- A resource guide compiled by the AAPT for educators ComPADRE
Organizing Catagories
These are the broad, overarching categories, that we cover in two semester of introductory physics. You can add subcategories or make a new category as needed. A single topic should direct readers to a page in one of these catagories.
Interactions
- Fundamental Interactions
Fundamental interactions, are the most basic interactions in physical systems. There are four conventionally accepted fundamental interactions: Gravitational, Electromagnetic, Strong force, and Weak force.
The Garvitational Interaction is the Interaction that a planet or some other large body that has it's own gravitational field can exert on the System from the Surroundings. The Gravitational Interaction from the Earth onto an object that is within Earth's gravitational field is 9.81 meters per second squared (m/s^2).
The Electromagnetic Interaction is the Interaction that charged particles can exert on the System from the Surroundings. Here we use Coulomb's Constant (8.98*10^9 n/m^2 (newtons*meters squared)) to describe the Interaction between electrically charged particles.
The Strong Force is the Interaction between subatomic particles of matter. The strong force binds quarks together in clusters to make more-familiar subatomic particles, such as protons and neutrons. It also holds together the atomic nucleus.
The Weak force is the Interaction that governs the decay of unstable subatomic particles such as mesons. It also initiates the nuclear fusion reaction that fuels the Sun.
- System & Surroundings.
A System is a part of the universe that we choose to study. The Surroundings are everything else that surrounds the System. For further refrence, see: Thinking about Physics Thinking by Professor Michael Schatz[1]
I can't submit this for grading on WebAssign yet, so I'll just leave my signature with timestamp here. --Austinrocket (talk) 23:17, 18 October 2015 (EDT)
Properties of Matter
- Mass
- Charge
- Spin
Momentum
- Vectors
- Kinematics
- Predicting Change in one dimension
- Predicting Change in multiple dimensions
Angular Momentum
- The Moments of Inertia
- Rotation
- Torque
- Predicting a Change in Rotation
Energy
- Predicting Change
- Rest Mass Energy
- Kinetic Energy
- Potential Energy
Fields
Simple Circuits
- Components
- Steady State
- Non Steady State
Maxwell's Equations
- Gauss's Flux Theorem
- Electric Fields
- Magnetic Fields
- Faraday's Law
- Ampere-Maxwell Law
Radiation
Resources
- Commonly used wiki commands Wiki Cheatsheet
- A guide to representing equations in math mode Wiki Math Mode
- A page to keep track of all the physics Constants