Students : Curriculum : Science : Physics

Introduction

Why study Physics?

Physics is the search for the answers to some of the biggest questions. It is about the Universe, how it has come into being and how it is today. It is also about how the world works on the smallest scale, that of atoms, nuclei, nucleons, quarks and beyond. The application of physics influences our daily lives. Thus, satellite communications and computers affect the way the world now works and how we arrange our lives. Advances in medical physics mean earlier diagnoses of illness and better treatment of disease.

What's in the course?

The AS course will involve the study of topics such as Communication (imaging, sensing, and signalling), Designer Materials and Understanding Processes (Wave and quantum behaviour, space and time). The A2 course will involve the study of the Rise and fall of the Clockwork Universe (models, our place in the Universe and matter in extremes) as well as Fields and Particle Pictures (electromagnetic machines, field theory, particle physics and radioactivity). A running theme throughout the course is how physicists work; their motivation and how they came to discover what they know and understand. The course also includes all of the mathematics that is required and there is no need to do A level Mathematics as well unless the student wants to.

How will students learn about Physics?

The course will involve a variety of different teaching and learning styles. There will be a lot of practical work to give a feel for how things work as well as direct teaching of the material. A student CD-ROM will be used in addition to a course book. Information technology is used a great deal both in and out of the laboratory and students are expected to use the Internet for research. The CD-ROM enables students to model the behaviour of, for example, tornadoes and the imaging software allow the manipulation of images of the landscape of Mars or the inside of the human body. Students will be expected to communicate their ideas to the group through presentations and will do an investigation and a research project in the A2 part of the course. The course aims to give students the skills to think and work independently.

The main features of the Advanced Physics course

• Up to date physics: modern ideas and applications, important trends
• Help with mathematics: how to do the mathematics, and what it means
• Variety: something for everyone; fundamentals, applications, connections
• Involvement: you choose things to study in depth
• People and ideas: where ideas came from and where they are going
• Real practical work: learning skills, investigating for yourself
• Using computers: tools, models, information
• Physics at work: medical and other applications, jobs physics can lead to
• Physics told as an interesting human story
• Essential ideas presented as picture panels
• Attractive and informative visual illustrations
• Questions and answers to build confidence
• Summary 'What you have learned' checklists
• A-Z of physics: fingertip revision
• Activities and questions to do
• Images to look at, things to read
• Modern computer tools to use, data to work with
• Checklists: what can you do?

Summary of the AS course

Physics in Action

• Communication
  • 1. Imaging
    Digital imaging, in medicine, astronomy, seeing inside matter. Eyes, lenses and human perception.
     
  • 2. Sensing Electronic
    Sensors and instrumentation; understanding electric circuits, current, potential difference, power.
     
  • 3. Signalling
    Digital communications: fax, telephone, e-mail, television. Waves carrying information.
     
• Designer Materials
  • 4. Testing materials
    Selecting natural and human-made materials for a job: metals, ceramics, glasses, polymers, fibres, wood. How they behave and what they can do.
     
  • 5. Looking inside materials
    Explaining how materials behave: cracking, slipping, stretching, conducting electricity.

Understanding processes

• Wave & quantum behaviour
  • 6. Wave behaviour
    Waves on top of one another. Colours and sounds from waves combining. Trying to understand the true nature of light - a story from history. Interference and diffraction.
     
  • 7. Quantum behaviour
    The story of light brought up to date: quantum behaviour of photons. What is quantum behaviour? And finding that electrons do it too.
     
• Space and time
  • 8. Mapping space and time
    Mapping space: what vectors are and how they add together. Journeys: speed, time, velocity. Graphing journeys, finding distances and velocities.
     
  • 9. Computing the next move
    Air traffic control, relative velocity. Athletics, cars, aeroplanes: how accelerations work. Sky diving and tennis: falling under gravity. High speed trains: kinetic energy, potential energy.

Summary of the A2 course

Rise and fall of the clockwork Universe

• 10. Creating models
  How to build simple computer models: exponential decay, harmonic oscillator, potential and kinetic energy
   
• 11. Out into space
  Leaving Earth behind: the story of our exploration of the planets. Circular motion, gravitational field, gravitational potential, momentum.
   
• 12. Our place in the Universe
  Reasons for supposing that we live in an expanding Universe. Measuring the Universe. Where relativity comes from.
   
• 13. Matter: very simple
  Predictions from simple chaos inside matter: kinetic theory of gases, thermal capacity, particle energy kT, conservation of energy
   
• 14. Matter: very hot and cold
  Temperatures from absolute zero to millions of degrees. Liquid nitrogen, plasmas, biological materals. Pure random behaviour gives predictions, Boltzmann factor
   

Field and Particle pictures

• 15. Electromagnetic machines
  How electromagnetic machines work and deliver power: transformer, dynamo, and motors. Motive power present and future.
   
• 16. Charge and field
  Accelerators: charges moving in electric and magnetic fields. Comparing electric and gravitational fields. Electric potential.
  
  17. Probing deep into matter
  How to see inside atoms and the nucleus. Fundamental particles: steps to particle physics. Energy levels: models of atom using quantum ideas.
   
• 18. Ionising radiation and risk
  Uses and risks of ionising radiation: radioactive decay, tracers in medicine, nuclear stability, E = mc2.
   
• Advances in physics
  A set of problems, some fundamental, some applied, in which different parts of physics are brought together to make progress with a problem, and perhaps produce a new one. The CD will have further examples.

Coursework and assessment

Modular written exams account for 70% and coursework 30% of the final grade given to the student.

AS coursework:

• Instrumentation project - Make and test a sensor, or check out a commercial sensor, or use sensors in an experiment.
• Materials presentation- Research into a material of your own choice, and make a presentation about it.
• Data analysis project - Analyse and report on data you collected or which you are given.

A2 coursework:

• Practical Investigation - Follow up a problem of your own choice.
• Research Report - Research into and report on a topic of your own choice.

Some useful websites for further information.

1. The examination specification
2. The Advancing Physics website