Main Page
Welcome to the Georgia Tech Wiki for Introductory 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 for future students!
Looking to make a contribution?
- Pick one of the topics from intro physics listed below
- Add content to that topic or improve the quality of what is already there.
- Need to make a new topic? Edit this page and add it to the list under the appropriate category. Then 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 written for students by a physics expert MSU Physics Wiki
- 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 Categories
These are the broad, overarching categories, that we cover in three semester of introductory physics. You can add subcategories as needed but a single topic should direct readers to a page in one of these categories.
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
- A page for review of Vectors and vector operations
- A listing of Notable Scientist with links to their individual pages
Physics 1
Week 1
Help with VPython
Interactions
Velocity and Momentum
Week 2
Momentum and the Momentum Principle
Iterative Prediction with a Constant Force
Week 3
Analytic Prediction with a Constant Force
Iterative Prediction with a Varying Force
Week 4
Fundamental Interactions
Week 5
Conservation of Momentum
Properties of Matter
Week 6
Identifying Forces
Week 7
Energy Principle
Week 8
Work by Non-Constant Forces
Potential Energy
Week 9
Multiparticle Systems
Week 10
Choice of System
Thermal Energy, Dissipation and Transfer of Energy
Rotational and Vibrational Energy
Week 11
Different Models of a System
Models of Friction
Week 12
Collisions
Week 13
Rotations
Angular Momentum
- Total Angular Momentum
- Translational Angular Momentum
- Rotational Angular Momentum
- The Angular Momentum Principle
- Angular Momentum Compared to Linear Momentum
- Angular Impulse
- Predicting the Position of a Rotating System
- Angular Momentum of Multiparticle Systems
- The Moments of Inertia
- Moment of Inertia for a cylinder
- Right Hand Rule