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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 state of a nonrotating object upon whom the net torque acting is zero.






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


3. In oscillation - a cycle occurs when an object undergoing oscillatory motion completes a "round-trip." For instance - a pendulum bob released at angle has completed one cycle when it swings to and then back to again. In period motion - a cycle is the






4. The number - N - of neutrons in an atomic nucleus.






5. Given the trajectory of an object or system - the center of mass is the point that has the same acceleration as the object or system as a whole would have if its mass were concentrated at that point. In terms of force - the center of mass is the poin






6. A constant in the numerator of a formula.






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






8. A transverse traveling wave created by the oscillations of an electric field and a magnetic field. Electromagnetic waves travel at the speed of light - m/s. Examples include microwaves - X rays - and visible light.






9. The process by which a gas turns directly into a solid because it cannot exist as a liquid at certain pressures.






10. When a solid - liquid - or gas changes into another phase of matter.






11. A constant - - not to be confused with wavelength - that defines the speed at which a radioactive element undergoes decay. The greater is - the faster the element decays.






12. 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






13. The building blocks of all matter - atoms are made up of a nucleus consisting of protons and neutrons - and a number of electrons that orbit the nucleus. An electrically neutral atom has as many protons as it has electrons.






14. Kinematics is the study and description of the motion of objects.






15. 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.






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






17. 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.






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






19. An object cannot be cooled to absolute zero.






20. Heat transfer via the mass movement of molecules.






21. The index of refraction n = c/v of a substance characterizes the speed of light in that substance - v. It also characterizes - by way of Snell's Law - the angle at which light refracts in that substance.






22. A positively charged particle that - along with the neutron - occupies the nucleus of the atom.






23. A back-and-forth movement about an equilibrium position. Springs - pendulums - and other oscillators experience harmonic motion.






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






25. The velocity at any given instant in time. To be contrasted with average velocity - which is a measure of the change in displacement over a given time interval.






26. The separation of different color light via refraction.






27. The angle between a reflected ray and the normal.






28. An image created by a mirror or lens in such a way that light does not actually come from where the image appears to be.






29. The longest side of a right triangle - opposite to the right angle.






30. 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






31. An area of high air pressure that acts as the wave crest for sound waves. The spacing between successive compressions is the wavelength of sound - and the number of successive areas of compression that arrive at the ear per second is the frequency -






32. A unit for measuring angles; also called a "rad." 2p rad = 360º.






33. Heat transfer by molecular collisions.






34. 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






35. A device that converts mechanical energy to electrical energy by rotating a coil in a magnetic field; sometimes called a "dynamo."






36. A unit vector is a vector with length 1.






37. An electromagnetic wave of very high frequency.






38. The force that binds protons and neutrons together in the atomic nucleus.






39. A scale for measuring temperature - defined such that 0K is the lowest theoretical temperature a material can have. 273K = 0ºC.






40. A form of vector multiplication - where two vectors are multiplied to produce a third vector. The cross product of two vectors - A and B - separated by an angle - - is - where is a unit vector perpendicular to both A and B. To deine which direction






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






42. A means of defining the direction of the cross product vector. To define the direction of the vector - position your right hand so that your fingers point in the direction of A - and then curl them around so that they point in the direction of B. Th






43. The position - of an object according to a co-ordinate system measured in s of the angle of the object from a certain origin axis. Conventionally - this origin axis is the positive x-axis.






44. A coefficient that tells how much a material will expand or contract lengthwise when it is heated or cooled.






45. A vector quantity - L - that is the rotational analogue of linear momentum. For a single particle - the angular momentum is the cross product of the particle's displacement from the axis of rotation and the particle's linear momentum - . For a rigid






46. A vector quantity - commonly denoted by the vector s - which reflects an object's change in spatial position. The displacement vector points from the object's starting position to the object's current position in space. If an object is moved from poi






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






48. The path of each planet around the sun is an ellipse with the sun at one focus.


49. 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 -






50. The spectrum containing all the different kinds of electromagnetic waves - ranging in wavelength and frequency.