PhysiX

This textbook follows the course in Physics taught at Riga State Gymnasium No 1 in Year 10 covering fundamentals of classical mechanics and aiming to develop problem solving, experimental and critical thinking skills.

Some accordingly marked sections of the book contain advanced level material and are primarily aimed at the students who are willing to participate in Physics Olympiads. <!-- - Kinematics of translational motion - uniform motion - uniformly accelerated motion - motion in uniform gravitational field - Kinematics of rotational motion - uniform rotation - uniformly accelerated rotation - Forces - addition and resolution - Newton’s laws of motion - Friction and drag - Coulomb–Amonton‘s law - static and dynamic friction - dependence of drag on velocity - terminal velocity - Elasticity - Hooke’s law - stress - strain - elastic modulus - ultimate stress - Conservation laws - mechanical work - kinetic, potential and total energy - momentum, 2nd Newton’s law in momentum form - elastic and inelastic collisions - Equilibrium - moment of force (torque) - translational and rotational equilibrium - Dynamics of rotational motion - moment of inertia - angular momentum - 2nd Newton’s law for rotational motion - Gravitation - Newton’s law of universal gravitation - gravitational field - Kepler’s laws - orbital and escape velocities - Hydrodynamics - Pascal’s principle - hidrostatic pressure - buoyancy - continuity and Bernoulli equations - Oscillations - stability of the equilibrium - equation of SHM, its solution - energy transfer in SHM

The course also aims to develop the following experimental skills:

• designing the experiment:
  • choosing independent, dependent and controlled variables;
  • designing the experimental setup;
• performing measurements with simple instruments (ruler, vernier caliper, scales, measuring cylinder, dynamometer);
• estimating uncertainties:
  • instrumental uncertainty of a single measurement;
  • random uncertainty of a series of measurements;
  • propagation of uncertainties in calculations;
• working with graphs:
  • choosing suitable scales and plotting a graph;
  • linearising data;
  • using linear regression to estimate parameters of the system and uncertainties thereof;
• evaluating signifcance of different factors on the quality of results. -->