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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. A number - Z - associated with the number of protons in the nucleus of an atom. Every element can be defined in s of its atomic number - since every atom of a given element has the same number of protons.






2. Two materials are in thermal equilibrium if they are at the same temperature.






3. A nuclear reaction that takes place only at very high temperatures. Two light atoms - often hydrogen - fuse together to form a larger single atom - releasing a vast amount of energy in the process.






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






5. Waves that oscillate in the same direction as the propagation of the wave. Sound is carried by longitudinal waves - since the air molecules move back and forth in the same direction the sound travels.






6. A rough approximation of how gases work - that is quite accurate in everyday conditions. According to the kinetic theory - gases are made up of tiny - round molecules that move about in accordance with Newton's Laws - and collide with one another and






7. The building blocks of all matter - quarks are the constituent parts of protons - neutrons - and mesons.






8. A collision in which momentum is conserved but kinetic energy is not.






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






10. 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.






11. The ray of light that is reflected from a mirror or other reflecting surface.






12. Two oscillators that have the same frequency and amplitude - but reach their maximum displacements at different times - are said to have different phases. Similarly - two waves are in phase if their crests and troughs line up exactly - and they are o






13. The acceleration of a body experiencing uniform circular motion. This acceleration is always directed toward the center of the circle.






14. Body diagram- Illustrates the forces acting on an object - drawn as vectors originating from the center of the object.






15. The separation of different color light via refraction.






16. The number of hydrogen atoms in one gram of hydrogen - equal to . When counting the number of molecules in a gas - it is often convenient to count them in moles.






17. The process by which a solid turns directly into gas - because it cannot exist as a liquid at a certain pressure.






18. The number of digits that have been accurately measured. When combining several measurements in a formula - the resulting calculation can only have as many significant digits as the measurement that has the smallest number of significant digits.






19. A pulley is a simple machine that consists of a rope that slides around a disk or block.






20. A force caused by the roughness of two materials in contact - deformations in the materials - and a molecular attraction between the materials. Frictional forces are always parallel to the plane of contact between two surfaces and opposite the direct






21. A particle - which consists of two protons and two neutrons. It is identical to the nucleus of a helium atom and is ejected by heavy particles undergoing alpha decay.






22. Heat transfer by molecular collisions.






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






24. The distance between the focal point and the vertex of a mirror or lens. For concave mirrors and convex lenses - this number is positive. For convex mirrors and concave lenses - this number is negative.






25. 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.






26. A vector quantity - or vector - is an object possessing - and fully described by - a magnitude and a direction. Graphically a vector is depicted as an arrow with its magnitude given by the length of the arrow and its direction given by where the arro






27. When dealing with reflection or refraction - the incident ray is the ray of light before it strikes the reflecting or refracting surface.






28. A principle derived by Werner Heisenberg in 1927 that tells us that we can never know both the position and the momentum of a particle at any given time.






29. The cosine of an angle in a right triangle is equal to the length of the side adjacent to the angle divided by the length of the hypotenuse.






30. The name of an electron released from the surface of a metal due to the photoelectric effect.






31. 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






32. Any vector can be expressed as the sum of two mutually perpendicular component vectors. Usually - but not always - these components are multiples of the basis vectors - and ; that is - vectors along the x-axis and y-axis. We define these two vectors






33. The points of maximum displacement along a wave. In traveling waves - the crests move in the direction of propagation of the wave. The crests of standing waves - also called anti-nodes - remain in one place.






34. 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.






35. 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.






36. 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.






37. For a reflected light ray - . In other words - a ray of light reflects of a surface in the same plane as the incident ray and the normal - and at an angle to the normal that is equal to the angle between the incident ray and the normal.






38. With spherical mirrors - the radius of the sphere of which the mirror is a part.






39. A scale for measuring temperature - defined such that water freezes at 0ºC and boils at 100ºC. 0ºC = 273 K.






40. Two quantities are directly proportional if an increase in one results in a proportional increase in the other - and a decrease in one results in a proportional decrease in the other. In a formula defining a certain quantity - those quantities to whi






41. A mirror that is curved such that its center is closer to the viewer than the edges - such as a doorknob. Convex mirrors reflect light away from a focal point.






42. The process by which unstable nuclei spontaneously release particles and/or energy so as to come to a more stable arrangement. The most common forms of radioactive decay are alpha decay - beta decay - and gamma decay.






43. An object that retains its overall shape - meaning that the particles that make up the rigid body stay in the same position relative to one another.






44. A push or a pull that causes an object to accelerate.






45. The force that causes simple harmonic motion. The restoring force is always directed toward an object's equilibrium position.






46. The series of standing waves supported by a string with both ends tied down. The first member of the series - called the fundamental - has two nodes at the ends and one anti-node in the middle. The higher harmonics are generated by placing an integra






47. When an object is held in circular motion about a massive body - like a planet or a sun - due to the force of gravity - that object is said to be in orbit. Objects in orbit are in perpetual free fall - and so are therefore weightless.






48. An object at rest remains at rest - unless acted upon by a net force. An object in motion remains in motion - unless acted upon by a net force.

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49. In the Bohr model of the atom - the state in which an electron has the least energy and orbits closest to the nucleus.






50. The property by which a changing current in one coil of wire induces an emf in another.