physNRICH

Age 14 to 18

Challenge Level Yellow star

stemNRICH : Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics enriched

Welcome to physNRICH: the physics section of stemNRICH. This contains mathematical activities for students aged 14 - 19 designed to complement and enhance the study of physics.

Area of maths	Style	Question	Description
General		Big and Small Numbers in Physics	Work out estimates of the numerical values for these physical quantities.
Dynamics	See also the Dynamics problems on the engNRICH pages
		Speedo	Track the motion of this dangerous driver.
		Dangerous Driver	Analyse the dynamics to determine if this speeding ticket was issued in error.
		The Not-so-simple Pendulum 1	See how the motion of the simple pendulum is not-so-simple after all.
		The Not-so-simple Pendulum 2	Friction is now added to the approximate simple pendulum, leading to a more realistic solution.
		Motorbike Momentum	Look at the dynamics of the sphere of death and see the results in action on the video.
		Whoosh	A ball whooshes down a slide and hits another ball which flies off the slide horizontally as a projectile. How far does it go?
Gravitation		Cannon Balls	How high will a ball taking a million seconds to fall travel?
		Gravity Paths	Where will the spaceman go when he falls through these strange planetary systems?
		Escape from Planet Earth	How fast would you have to throw a ball upwards so that it would never land?
		Earth Orbit	Follow in the steps of Newton and find the path that the earth follows around the sun.
Units in physics		Universal Time, Length, Mass	Can you work out the natural time scale for the universe?
		New Units for Old	Give yourself an in-depth units workout by matching up these physical phenomena with their dimensions and standard units.
		Levels of Bohr	Look at the units in the expression for the energy levels of the electrons in a hydrogen atom according to the Bohr model.
Power, work and energy in physics	See also the Power, Work and Energy problems on the engNRICH pages
		Lunar Leaper	How high could you pole-vault on the moon?
		Go, Spaceship, Go!	Show that even this powerful spaceship will eventually run out of overtaking power.
		Sweeping Satellite	Look at kinetic and potential energies of a planet to find out about the moment of momentum.
Atoms and particles		The Ultra Particle	Explore the energy of this incredibly energetic particle.
		Striking Gold	Investigate some of the issues raised by Geiger and Marsden's famous scattering experiment in which they fired alpha particles at a sheet of gold.
		Cobalt Decay	Investigate the effects of the half-lives of the isotopes of cobalt on the mass of a mystery lump of the element.
		Pack Man	Work out the best packing structure to maximise the density of a metal.
		Lennard Jones Potential	Investigate why the Lennard-Jones potential gives a good approximate explanation for the behaviour of atoms at close ranges.
Electricity	See also the Electrical Engineering problems on the engNRICH pages
		Resistance	How would the resistance build up in an infinite network of resistors?
		Pumping the Power	Look at how the power in a lightbulb varies over time.
		Hold Still Please	Can you arrange a set of charged particles so that none of them starts to move when released from rest?
		The Lorentz Force Law	Explore the Lorentz force law for charges moving in different ways.
Fluids		Keep Your Momentum Going	Find out about the steady flow momentum equation of fluid dynamics.
		Moving Stonehenge	Explore the transportation by river of the blocks used to make Stonehenge
		Poiseuille's Equation	Look at the flow of fluids down circular pipes.
Gas laws	See also the Gases problems on the chemNRICH pages
		Ideal Gases	Various problems which make you think about the kinetic ideas underlying the ideal gas laws.
		Ideal Axes	Explore how changing the axes for a plot of the gas law equations can lead to different shaped graphs emerging.
Waves and oscillations
Waves and oscillations		Mach Attack	Look at the wavefronts produced by aricraft as they approach and go beyond Mach 1.
Advanced mathematics in physics		The Real Hydrogen Atom	Dip your toe into the world of quantum mechanics by looking at the Schrodinger equation for hydrogen atoms.
Articles		Modelling Assumptions in Mechanics	This advanced article demonstrates mathematically how various physical modelling assumptions affect the solution to the seemingly simple problem of the projectile.
		The Power of Dimensional Analysis	Read about this very useful concept and view physical equations in a different light.
		Electromagnetism	Find out how Ohm's law develops and find a fundamental link to complex numbers along the way.
		Which Twin is Older?	A simplified account of special relativity and the twin paradox.

Number and algebra

Geometry and measure

Probability and statistics

Working mathematically

Advanced mathematics

For younger learners

physNRICH

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