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






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






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






4. 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.






5. The principle by which the displacements from different waves traveling in the same medium add up. Superposition is the basis for interference.






6. 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.






7. The reaction force of the ground - a table - etc. - when an object is placed upon it. The normal force is a direct consequence of Newton's Third Law: when an object is placed on the ground - the ground pushes back with the same force that it is pushe






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






9. A form of vector multiplication - where two vectors are multiplied to produce a scalar. The dot product of two vectors - A and B - is expressed by the equation A · B = AB cos .






10. 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.






11. Defined as the rate at which work is done - or the rate at which energy is transformed. P is measured in joules per second (J/s) - or watts (W).






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






13. A collision in which both kinetic energy and momentum are conserved.






14. In the graphical representation of vectors - the tail of the arrow is the blunt end (the end without a point).






15. The ray of light that is refracted through a surface into a different medium.






16. States that the net work done on an object is equal to the object's change in kinetic energy.






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






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






19. 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.






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






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






22. The center of an atom - where the protons and neutrons reside. Electrons then orbit this nucleus.






23. The tendency of an object to remain at a constant velocity - or its resistance to being accelerated. Newton's First Law is alternatively called the Law of Inertia because it describes this tendency.






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






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






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






27. 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.


28. 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.






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






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






31. A wavelength - given by = h/mv - which is associated with matter. Louis de Broglie proposed the idea that matter could be treated as waves in 1923 and applied this theory successfully to small particles like electrons.






32. 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.






33. The force involved in beta decay that changes a proton to a neutron and releases an electron and a neutrino.






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






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






36. A constant in the numerator of a formula.






37. Energy associated with the state of motion. The translational kinetic energy of an object is given by the equation .






38. 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






39. The gravitational force exerted on a given mass.






40. 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.






41. The center of a mirror or lens.






42. The ratio of the size of the image produced by a mirror or lens to the size of the original object. This number is negative if the image is upside-down.






43. The point of a mirror or lens where all light that runs parallel to the principal axis will be focused. Concave mirrors and convex lenses are designed to focus light into the focal point. Convex mirrors and concave lenses focus light away from the fo






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






45. 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.






46. 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






47. Represented by R = 8.31 J/mol · K - the universal gas constant fits into the ideal gas law so as to relate temperature to the average kinetic energy of gas molecules.






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






49. 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.






50. 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