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SAT Subject Test: hysics

Subjects : sat, science, physics
Instructions:
  • Answer 50 questions in 15 minutes.
  • If you are not ready to take this test, you can study here.
  • Match each statement with the correct term.
  • Don't refresh. All questions and answers are randomly picked and ordered every time you load a test.

This is a study tool. The 3 wrong answers for each question are randomly chosen from answers to other questions. So, you might find at times the answers obvious, but you will see it re-enforces your understanding as you take the test each time.
1. The amount heat necessary to cause a substance to undergo a phase transition.






2. The reaction force of the ground - a table - etc. - when an object is placed upon it. The normal force is a direct consequence of Newton's Third Law: when an object is placed on the ground - the ground pushes back with the same force that it is pushe






3. Also called a diverging lens - a lens that is thinner in the middle than at the edges. Concave lenses refract light away from a focal point.






4. A rigid body's resistance to being rotated. The moment of inertia for a single particle is MR2 - where M is the mass of the rigid body and R is the distance to the rotation axis. For rigid bodies - calculating the moment of inertia is more complicate






5. To every action - there is an equal and opposite reaction. If an object A exerts a force on another object B - B will exert on A a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction to the force exerted by A.


6. The energy of a particle moving in space. It is defined in s of a particle's mass - m - and velocity - v - as (1/2)mv2.






7. In a right triangle - the tangent of a given angle is the length of the side opposite the angle divided by the length of the side adjacent to the triangle.






8. The amount of error that's possible in a given measurement.






9. A vector quantity defined as the rate of change of the velocity vector with time.






10. The dot product of the area and the magnetic field passing through it. Graphically - it is a measure of the number and length of magnetic field lines passing through that area. It is measured in Webers (Wb).






11. The sum of a system's potential and kinetic energy. In many systems - including projectiles - pulleys - pendulums - and motion on frictionless surfaces - mechanical energy is conserved. One important type of problem in which mechanical energy is not






12. A scalar quantity that tells us how fast an object is moving. It measures the rate of change in distance over time. Speed is to be contrasted with velocity in that there is no direction associated with speed.






13. The points midway between nodes on a standing wave - where the oscillations are largest.






14. Waves carried by variations in air pressure. The speed of sound waves in air at room temperature and pressure is roughly 343 m/s.






15. The amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree Celsius. 1 cal = 4.19 J.






16. The time it takes a system to pass through one cycle of its repetitive motion. The period - T - is the inverse of the motion's frequency - f = 1/T.






17. Given the period - T - and semimajor axis - a - of a planet's orbit - the ratio is the same for every planet.


18. The force involved in beta decay that changes a proton to a neutron and releases an electron and a neutrino.






19. The experience of being in free fall. If you are in a satellite - elevator - or other free-falling object - then you have a weight of zero Newtons relative to that object.






20. The two shorter sides of a right triangle that meet at the right angle.






21. The bending of light as it passes from one medium to another. Light refracts toward the normal when going from a less dense medium into a denser medium and away from the normal when going from a denser medium into a less dense medium.






22. The mass number - A - is the sum of the number of protons and neutrons in a nucleus. It is very close to the weight of that nucleus in atomic mass units.






23. An image created by a mirror or lens in such a way that light does actually come from where the image appears to be. If you place a screen in front of a real image - the image will be projected onto the screen.






24. A particle - identical to an electron. Beta particles are ejected from an atom in the process of beta decay.






25. Done when energy is transferred by a force. The work done by a force F in displacing an object by s is W = F · s.






26. A vector quantity - equal to the rate of change of the angular velocity vector with time. It is typically given in units of rad/s2.






27. The application of kinematics to understand why objects move the way they do. More precisely - dynamics is the study of how forces cause motion.






28. An experiment in 1879 that showed that the speed of light is constant to all observers. Einstein used the results of this experiment as support for his theory of special relativity.






29. There are a few versions of this law. One is that heat flows spontaneously from hot to cold - but not in the reverse direction. Another is that there is no such thing as a 100% efficient heat engine. A third states that the entropy - or disorder - of






30. For a gas held at constant pressure - temperature and volume are directly proportional.


31. Heat transfer via electromagnetic waves.






32. A conserved scalar quantity associated with the state or condition of an object or system of objects. We can roughly define energy as the capacity for an object or system to do work. There are many different types of energy - such as kinetic energy -






33. A property of a metal - the minimum frequency of electromagnetic radiation that is necessary to release photoelectrons from that metal.






34. A class of elementary particle whose mass is between that of a proton and that of an electron. A common kind of meson is the pion.






35. A nuclear reaction in which a high-energy neutron bombards a heavy - unstable atomic nucleus - causing it to split into two smaller nuclei - and releasing some neutrons and a vast amount of energy at the same time






36. In an interference or diffraction pattern - the places where there is the least light.






37. Occurs when every point in the rigid body moves in a circular path around a line called the axis of rotation.






38. A reference frame in which Newton's First Law is true. Two inertial reference frames move at a constant velocity relative to one another. According to the first postulate of Einstein's theory of special relativity - the laws of physics are the same i






39. The particles and energy released by the fission or fusion of one atom may trigger the fission or fusion of further atoms. In a chain reaction - fission or fusion is rapidly transferred to a large number of atoms - releasing tremendous amounts of ene






40. The cancellation of one wave by another wave that is exactly out of phase with the first. Despite the dramatic name of this phenomenon - nothing is "destroyed" by this interference—the two waves emerge intact once they have passed each other.






41. The net change - - in a point's angular position - . It is a scalar quantity.






42. The coefficient of kinetic friction - - for two materials is the constant of proportionality between the normal force and the force of kinetic friction. It is always a number between zero and one.






43. The energy of the molecules that make up an object. It is related to heat - which is the amount of energy transferred from one object to another object that is a different temperature.






44. A form of radioactive decay where a heavy element ejects a beta particle and a neutrino - becoming a lighter element in the process.






45. A constant in the numerator of a formula.






46. The model of the atom according to which negatively charged electrons orbit a positively charged nucleus. This model was developed by Ernest Rutherford in light of the results from his gold foil experiment.






47. A small particle-like bundle of electromagnetic radiation.






48. The temperature at which a material will change phase from solid to liquid or liquid to solid.






49. The coefficient of static friction - for two materials is the constant of proportionality between the normal force and the maximum force of static friction. It is always a number between zero and one.






50. The current induced in a circuit by a change in magnetic flux.