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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 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






2. When a light ray strikes a surface - the angle of incidence is the angle between the incident ray and the normal.






3. The substance that is displaced as a wave propagates through it. Air is the medium for sound waves - the string is the medium of transverse waves on a string - and water is the medium for ocean waves. Note that even if the waves in a given medium tra






4. The separation of different color light via refraction.






5. A frequency - f - defined as the number of revolutions a rigid body makes in a given time interval. It is a scalar quantity commonly denoted in units of Hertz (Hz) or s-1.






6. An equation - PV = nRT - that relates the pressure - volume - temperature - and quantity of an ideal gas. An ideal gas is one that obeys the approximations laid out in the kinetic theory of gases.






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






8. In a right triangle - the sine of a given angle is the length of the side opposite the angle divided by the length of the hypotenuse.






9. 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






10. A quantity that possesses a magnitude but not a direction. Mass and length are common examples.






11. A form of radioactivity where an excited atom releases a photon of gamma radiation - thereby returning to a lower energy state. The atomic structure itself does not change in the course of gamma radiation.






12. An object is called radioactive if it undergoes radioactive decay.






13. The mass difference between a nucleus and the sum of the masses of the constituent protons and neutrons.






14. Waves in which the medium moves in the direction perpendicular to the propagation of the wave. Waves on a stretched string - water waves - and electromagnetic waves are all examples of transverse waves.






15. A constant - J · s - which is useful in quantum physics. A second constant associated with Planck's constant is .

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16. A transfer of thermal energy. We don't speak about systems "having" heat - but about their "transferring" heat - much in the way that dynamical systems don't "have" work - but rather "do" work.






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






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






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






20. A property common to both vectors and scalars. In the graphical representation of a vector - the vector's magnitude is equal to the length of the arrow.






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. If a line is drawn from the sun to the planet - then the area swept out by this line in a given time interval is constant.

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23. 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.






24. 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.






25. Light such that all of the associated waves have the same wavelength and are in phase.






26. The time - T - required for a rigid body to complete one revolution.






27. A logorithmic unit for measuring the volume of sound - which is the square of the amplitude of sound waves.






28. A coefficient that tells how much the volume of a solid will change when it is heated or cooled.






29. Heat transfer via the mass movement of molecules.






30. The bending of light at the corners of objects or as it passes through narrow slits or apertures.






31. The line that every particle in the rotating rigid body circles about.






32. Energy cannot be made or destroyed; energy can only be changed from one place to another or from one form to another.






33. 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.






34. 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






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






36. The study of the properties of visible light - i.e. - the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum with wavelengths between 360 and 780 nm (1 nm = m/s).






37. A measure of the average kinetic energy of the molecules in a system. Temperature is related to heat by the specific heat of a given substance.






38. 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






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






40. For a gas held at a constant temperature - pressure and volume are inversely proportional.

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






42. The amount of heat necessary to transform a solid at a given temperature into a liquid of the same temperature - or the amount of heat needed to be removed from a liquid of a given temperature to transform it into a solid of the same temperature.






43. When objects collide - each object feels a force for a short amount of time. This force imparts an impulse - or changes the momentum of each of the colliding objects. The momentum of a system is conserved in all kinds of collisions. Kinetic energy is






44. The gravitational force exerted on a given mass.






45. The energy associated with the configuration of bodies attracted to each other by the gravitational force. It is a measure of the amount of work necessary to get the two bodies from a chosen point of reference to their present position. This point of






46. Heat transfer via electromagnetic waves.






47. The amount heat necessary to cause a substance to undergo a phase transition.






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






49. A constant in the numerator of a formula.






50. 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 -