Motion: Introduction Motion is one of the key topics in physics. Everything in the universe moves. It might only be a small amount of movement and very very slow, but movement does happen. Don't forget that even if you appear to be standing still, the Earth is moving around the Sun, and the Sun is moving around our galaxy. The movement never stops. Motion is one part of what physicists call mechanics. Acceleration is a twist on the idea of velocity. There are two main ideas when you study mechanics. There are also more complex movements when an object's direction is changing. In order to really understand motion, you have to think about forces, acceleration, energy, work, and mass. Or search the sites for a specific topic.
Evolution of the Universe - GigaPan Time Machine Jump to: From GigaPan Time Machine Direct Cosmological Simulations of the Growth of Black Holes and Galaxies This timelapse shows the distribution of matter in a simulated universe on large scales. The density of matter is shown on a false color scale, with the densest regions in yellow and the least dense in red and black. As the universe evolves from early times (it starts at an age of 10 million years after the Big Bang) the initially small fluctuations grow through the action of gravity until in the last frame (which represents the universe 14 billion years later, at redshift z=0, the present day) there are large clusters of galaxies present with vast, mostly empty spaces in between. To carry out the simulation the equations of gravity, hydrodynamics, radiative cooling, and models for star formation and black hole growth were solved in parallel on a system of 100 million particles. Galaxy cluster Watch a time warp of the formation of a cluster of galaxies. Void Supermassive blackhole
Acceleration - Physics for Kids! Acceleration is a way to measure how fast something is speeding up. Suppose you are riding your bike. You start out going very slowly, hardly pedaling at all. Now you begin to pedal as hard as you can, to speed up - you are accelerating. If you stop pedaling now, friction will work on your bike tires (and you'll have friction from the air, too), and you'll soon start to go slower. One important cause of acceleration is gravity. The acceleration of Earth's gravity will speed you up at about 9.8 meters per second per second (9.8 m/s2, or 9.8 meters per second squared). Standing on the cliff before you jump, you're going zero meters/second. You can use acceleration to find out the mass of an object, because force = mass x acceleration. Learn by doing - Using bikes to work with the physics of motion To find out more about acceleration, check out these books from Amazon.com or from your library: Or check out this link to the Encyclopedia Britannica's article on accleration. or
HyperPhysics Concepts About HyperPhysics Rationale for Development HyperPhysics is an exploration environment for concepts in physics which employs concept maps and other linking strategies to facilitate smooth navigation. Part of the intent for this exploration environment is to provide many opportunities for numerical exploration in the form of active formuli and standard problems implemented in Javascript. New content for HyperPhysics will be posted as it is developed. A resource that was initiated as a resource for local high school physics teachers whom I had taught has expanded into an intensively used website worldwide. CD or DVD versions have been sent to 86 countries to date, and translations into German, Italian, Chinese, and Español have been licensed and are underway. Please respect the Copyright HyperPhysics (©C.R. Availability on DVD or CD If you are interested, the full current content of HyperPhysics can be provided to you on cross-platform DVD or USB memory for the cost of $50. HyperPhysics
Galileo Drops the Ball - Virtual Experiment In around 1590 Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) climbed up the Leaning Tower of Pisa and dropped some balls to the ground. Two balls of different masses, but of similar shape and density that were released together hit the ground at the same time. Until then it was commonly believed that heavy things fall faster than light things. Many people still believe this, and casual observation of everyday phenomena often does tend to confirm this view. If you drop a brick and a feather at the same time the brick will probably hit the ground first. Galileo’s discovery is important in understanding how parachutes work. Click on the image to the left to try Galileo’s experiment for yourself. Find out more about Galileo Galilei.
Math, Physics, and Engineering Applets Oscillations and Waves Acoustics Signal Processing Electricity and Magnetism: Statics Electrodynamics Quantum Mechanics Linear Algebra Vector Calculus Thermodynamics Mechanics Miscellaneous Licensing info. Links to other educational sites with math/physics-related information or java applets useful for teaching: And when you get tired of learning, here is some fun stuff: Pong Simulation Circuit-level simulation of original 1972 Pong. Motion: Forces Forces are a big part of physics. Physicists devote a lot of time to the study of forces that are found everywhere in the universe. The forces could be big, such as the pull of a star on a planet. Let's look at the forces acting on that soccer ball before you kicked it. If there is more than one force acting on an object, the forces can be added up if they act in the same direction, or subtracted if they act in opposition. There is one totally important formula when it comes to forces, F = ma. Or search the sites for a specific topic.
www.physicscentral.com myphysicslab – physics simulation with java Peanut Software Homepage Page last updated: 13 Sept 12 For automatic notification of updates to these pages, you can subscribe to my RSS feed. My page of FAQ (27 Sept 10) is added to as necessary. If you encounter a significant problem (26 Jun 12), you may wish to share the details (my e-mail address is in the Help|About dialog box). Click the following links to reach the download pages: Wingeom (14 Jul 12) Winplot (13 Sep 12) Winstats (07 Aug 12) Winarc (08 Dec 11) Winfeed (13 Jun 12) Windisc (08 Sep 12) Winmat (25 Jul 12) Wincalc (05 Sep 12) Winwordy (22 Aug 12) Documents (14 Mar 11) All nine programs (13 Sep 12) (4.48M) The programs may be freely distributed. Each downloaded program is a self-extracting archive, which contains the executable file and perhaps some accessory files. To download programs, first create a directory on your hard drive into which the files will be copied, then click the program link at the top of the program page. Generosity! More peanuts. Exeter Home Page
The Physics Classroom Free Online Physics Courses Get free online Physics courses online from the world's leading universities. You can download these audio & video courses straight to your computer or mp3 player. The collection includes introductory physics courses recorded at top universities (e.g. Yale, UC Berkeley & MIT). You will also find more specialized courses covering topics like Einstein's theory of Relativity, black holes and string theory, not to mention some classic lectures by Richard Feynman. For more online courses, please visit our complete collection of Free Online Courses. 100 Years of Gravitational Waves - Web Video - Rai Weiss, World Science U/MITA Brief Guide to Everything - Web Video - John Ellis, King’s College London, CBE A Descriptive Introduction to Physics - Free Online Video - Steven W. Bookmark our collection of free online courses in Physics. For a full lineup of online courses, please visit our complete collection of Free Courses Online. Support Open Culture
Science Xplained Science Xplained is a collection of video podcasts that tell the stories of the science behind everyday topics. Dr. Ainissa G. Ramirez, self-proclaimed science evangelist and associate professor of mechanical engineering and materials science at Yale University, is the dynamic host of the series. Filter Resources by Grade: Videos 6-12 | Video Yale scientist Ainissa Ramirez describes the physics behind the game and what gives a football its speed, drag and spin in this video. 6-12 | Video In this video, Dr. Send us feedback about this Collection > Bad Astronomy | What causes lift? Yesterday, I wrote about one of my favorite kinds of clouds: Kelvin-Helmholtz clouds, also called fluctus clouds. You can call them wave clouds, because that’s what they look like: Waves breaking over a beach. I also embedded a video from Sixty Symbols explaining them, but during that explanation the scientist, Mike Merrifield, made a bit of a flub: He said that with an airplane wing, lift is generated because air is moving faster over the top of the wing than the bottom. That part is true, but he also said that the reason the air moves faster is that it has farther to travel over the curved wing than the air moving under the wing, where the wing is flat. But this isn’t really the case! This whole video fascinates me. If only politicians understood this. I also liked his explanation of what really goes into generating lift. Lift gets tricky because it uses all three and they affect each other. Sounds simple, right? But don’t take my word for it. But what about lift?