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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 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






2. 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).






3. 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.






4. The angle between a refracted ray and the line normal to the surface.






5. A vector quantity defined as the rate of change of the displacement vector with time. It is to be contrasted with speed - which is a scalar quantity for which no direction is specified.






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






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






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






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






10. A transfer of thermal energy from one system to another.






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






12. A wave that interferes with its own reflection so as to produce oscillations which stand still - rather than traveling down the length of the medium. Standing waves on a string with both ends tied down make up the harmonic series.






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






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






15. An area of high air pressure that acts as the wave trough for sound waves. The spacing between successive rarefactions is the wavelength of sound - and the number of successive areas of rarefaction that arrive at the ear per second is the frequency -






16. 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






17. The motion of a body in a circular path with constant speed.






18. 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.






19. The amplification of one wave by another - identical wave of the same sign. Two constructively interfering waves are said to be "in phase."






20. 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).






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






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






23. 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






24. A device that breaks incoming light down into spectral rays - so that one can see the exact wavelength constituents of the light.






25. A device made of two coils - which converts current of one voltage into current of another voltage. In a step-up transformer - the primary coil has fewer turns than the secondary - thus increasing the voltage. In a step-down transformer - the seconda






26. Waves produced by a source that is moving with respect to the observer will seem to have a higher frequency and smaller wavelength if the motion is towards the observer - and a lower frequency and longer wavelength if the motion is away from the obse






27. Relates the angle of incidence to the angle of refraction: .


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






29. For two given media - the smallest angle of incidence at which total internal reflection occurs.






30. The constant of proportionality in Newton's Law of Gravitation. It reflects the proportion of the gravitational force and - the product of two particles' masses divided by the square of the bodies' separation. N · m2/kg2.






31. 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.






32. A unit of measurement for energy on atomic levels. 1 eV = J.






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






34. The separation of different color light via refraction.






35. 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






36. 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 -






37. 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.






38. 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






39. 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.






40. 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






41. The force necessary to maintain a body in uniform circular motion. This force is always directed radially toward the center of the circle.






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






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






44. A mirror that is curved such that its center is farther from the viewer than the edges - such as the front of a spoon. Concave mirrors reflect light through a focal point.






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






46. 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.






47. An object cannot be cooled to absolute zero.






48. A sheet - film - or screen with a pattern of equally spaced slits. Typically the width of the slits and space between them is chosen to generate a particular diffraction pattern.






49. 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.






50. Also called a converging lens - a lens that is thicker in the middle than at the edges. Convex lenses refract light through a focal point.