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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 machine that operates by taking heat from a hot place - doing some work with that heat - and then exhausting the rest of the heat into a cool place. The internal combustion engine of a car is an example of a heat engine.






2. A pendulum consists of a bob connected to a rod or rope. At small angles - a pendulum's motion approximates simple harmonic motion as it swings back and forth without friction.






3. The amount of energy that metal must absorb before it can release a photoelectron from the metal.






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






5. In an interference or diffraction pattern - the places where there is the most light.






6. The amount of heat of a material required to raise the temperature of either one kilogram or one gram of that material by one degree Celsius. Different units may be used depending on whether specific heat is measured in s of grams or kilograms - and






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






8. The number of cycles executed by a system in one second. Frequency is the inverse of period - f = 1/T. Frequency is measured in hertz - Hz.






9. A unit of force: 1 N is equivalent to a 1 kg · m/s2.






10. 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






11. Linear momentum - p - commonly called "momentum" for short - is a vector quantity defined as the product of an object's mass - m - and its velocity - v.






12. 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.






13. The force between two surfaces moving relative to one another. The frictional force is parallel to the plane of contact between the two objects and in the opposite direction of the sliding object's motion.






14. 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.






15. 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






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






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






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






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






20. 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 -






21. A vector of magnitude 1 along one of the coordinate axes. Generally - we take the basis vectors to be and - the vectors of length 1 along the x- and y-axes - respectively.






22. 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.






23. The lowest theoretical temperature a material can have - where the molecules that make up the material have no kinetic energy. Absolute zero is reached at 0 K or -273º C.






24. 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.






25. 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.

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26. A wave with wave crests that propagate down the length of the medium - in contrast to stationary standing waves. The velocity at which a crest propagates is called the wave speed.






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






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






29. A body or set of bodies that we choose to analyze as a group.






30. 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 -






31. 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.






32. The force transmitted along a rope or cable.






33. 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






34. The stable position of a system where the net force acting on the object is zero.






35. A system that no external net force acts upon. Objects within the system may exert forces upon one another - but they cannot receive any impulse from outside forces. Momentum is conserved in isolated systems.






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






37. 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






38. 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.






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






40. In radioactive substances - the number of nuclei that decay per second. Activity - A - will be larger in large samples of radioactive material - since there will be more nuclei.






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






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






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






44. The force between two surfaces that are not moving relative to one another. The force of static friction is parallel to the plane of contact between the two objects and resists the force pushing or pulling on the object.






45. The points on a standing wave where total destructive interference causes the medium to remain fixed at its equilibrium position.






46. Atoms of the same element may have different numbers of neutrons and therefore different masses. Atoms of the same element but with different numbers of neutrons are called isotopes of the same element.






47. A negatively charged particle that orbits the nucleus of the atom.






48. The distance between successive wave crests - or troughs. Wavelength is measured in meters and is related to frequency and wave speed by = v/f.






49. 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






50. 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