Branches of physics

While Physics deals with a wide variety of systems, there are certain theories that are used by all physicists. Each of these theories were experimentally tested numerous times and found correct as an approximation of Nature (within a certain domain of validity). For instance, the theory of classical mechanics accurately describes the motion of objects, provided they are much larger than atoms and moving at much less than the speed of light. These theories continue to be areas of active research; for instance, a remarkable aspect of classical mechanics known as chaos was discovered in the 20th century, three centuries after the original formulation of classical mechanics by Isaac Newton (1642 1727). These "central theories" are important tools for research into more specialized topics, and any physicist, regardless of his or her specialization, is expected to be literate in them.

Classical mechanics
Classical mechanics is a model of the physics of forces acting upon bodies. It is often referred to as "Newtonian mechanics" after Isaac Newton and his laws of motion. Mechanics is subdivided into statics, which models objects at rest, kinematics, which models objects in motion, and dynamics, which models objects subjected to forces. The classical mechanics of continuous and deformable objects is continuum mechanics, which can itself be broken down intosolid mechanics and fluid mechanics according to the state of matter being studied. The latter, the mechanics of liquids and gases, includes hydrostatics,hydrodynamics, pneumatics, aerodynamics, and other fields. An important concept of mechanics is the identification of conserved energy and momentum, which lead to the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian reformulations of Newton's laws. Liouville's theorem for statistical and Hamiltonian mechanics is a classical nineteenth century result which describes the behavior of thephase space distribution function. Liouville's theorem has a suggestive formulation, the Poisson bracket, which encodes Hamilton's equations of classical mechanics, and has analogies with the commutator in quantum mechanics. A relatively recent result of considerations concerning the dynamics of nonlinear systems is chaos theory, the study of systems in which small changes in a variable may have large effects.

Thermodynamics and statistical mechanics

The first chapter of The Feynman Lectures on Physics is about the existence of atoms, which Feynman considered to be the most compact statement of physics, from which science could easily result even if all other knowledge was lost.
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By modeling matter as collections of hard spheres, it is possible to describe

the kinetic theory of gases, upon which classical thermodynamics is based.

Thermodynamics studies the effects of changes in temperature, pressure, and volume on physical systems at the macroscopic scale, and the transfer of energy as heat.
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Historically, thermodynamics

developed out of need to increase the efficiency of early steam engines.

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The starting point for most thermodynamic considerations are the laws of thermodynamics, which postulate that energy can be exchanged between physical systems as heat or work. They also postulate the existence of a quantity named entropy, which can be defined for any system.
[6] [5]

In thermodynamics,

interactions between large ensembles of objects are studied and categorized. Central to this are the concepts of system andsurroundings. A system is composed of particles, whose average motions define its properties, which in turn are related to one another throughequations of state. Properties can be combined to express internal energy and thermodynamic potentials, which are useful for determining conditions for equilibrium and spontaneous processes.

Electromagnetism
Electromagnetism describes the interaction of charged particles with electric and magnetic fields. It can be divided into electrostatics, the study of interactions between charges at rest, and electrodynamics, the study of interactions between moving charges and radiation. The classical theory of electromagnetism is based on the Lorentz force law and Maxwell's equations. Light is an oscillating electromagnetic field that is radiated from accelerating charged particles. Thus, all of optics, the study of the nature and propagation of light, can be reduced to electromagnetic interactions. Two major fields of optics are geometric optics or "classical optics", and physical optics which studies the electromagnetic properties of light to achieve greater understanding of phenomena such as interference, diffraction, and polarization. A more recent development is quantum electrodynamics, which incorporates the laws of quantum theory in order to explain the interaction of electromagnetic radiation with matter. Relativistic electrodynamics accounts for relativistic corrections to the motions of charged particles when their speeds approach the speed of light. It applies to phenomena involved with particle accelerators and electron tubes carrying high voltages and currents.

Relativity
The special theory of relativity enjoys a relationship with electromagnetism and mechanics; that is, the principle of relativity and the principle of stationary action in mechanics can be used to deriveMaxwell's equations,
[7][8]

and vice versa.

The theory of special relativity was proposed in 1905 by Albert Einstein in his article "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies". The title of the article refers to the fact that special relativity resolves an inconsistency between Maxwell's equations and classical mechanics. The theory is based on two postulates: (1) that the mathematical forms of the laws of physics are invariant in all inertial systems; and (2) that the speed of light in a vacuum is constant and independent of the source or observer. Reconciling the two postulates requires a unification of space and time into the frame-dependent concept of spacetime. General relativity is the geometrical theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915/16.
[9][10]

It

unifies special relativity, Newton's law of universal gravitation, and the insight that gravitation can be described by the curvature of space and time. In general relativity, the curvature of space-time is produced by the energy of matter and radiation.

Quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics is the branch of physics treating atomic and subatomic systems and their interaction with radiation. It is based on the observation that all forms of energy are released in discrete units or bundles called "quanta". Remarkably, quantum theory typically permits only probable or statisticalcalculation of the observed features of subatomic particles, understood in terms of wavefunctions. The Schrdinger equation plays the role in quantum mechanics that Newton's laws and conservation of energy serve in classical mechanics i.e., it predicts the future behavior of a dynamic system and is a wave equation that is used to solve for wavefunctions. For example, the light, or electromagnetic radiation emitted or absorbed by an atom has only certain frequencies (or wavelengths), as can be seen from theline spectrum associated with the chemical element represented by that atom. The quantum theory shows that those frequencies correspond to definite energies of the light quanta, or photons, and result from the fact that the electrons of the atom can have only certain allowed energy values, or levels; when an electron changes from one allowed level to another, a quantum of energy is emitted or absorbed whose frequency is directly proportional to the energy difference between the two levels. The photoelectric effect further confirmed the quantization of light. In 1924, Louis de Broglie proposed that not only do light waves sometimes exhibit particle-like properties, but particles may also exhibit wavelike properties. Two different formulations of quantum mechanics were presented following de Broglies suggestion. The wave mechanics of Erwin Schrdinger (1926) involves the use of a mathematical entity, the wave function, which is related to the probability of finding a particle at a given point in space. The matrix mechanics of Werner Heisenberg (1925) makes no mention of wave

functions or similar concepts but was shown to be mathematically equivalent to Schrdingers theory. A particularly important discovery of the quantum theory is the uncertainty principle, enunciated by Heisenberg in 1927, which places an absolute theoretical limit on the accuracy of certain measurements; as a result, the assumption by earlier scientists that the physical state of a system could be measured exactly and used to predict future states had to be abandoned. Quantum mechanics was combined with the theory of relativity in the formulation of Paul Dirac. Other developments include quantum statistics, quantum electrodynamics, concerned with interactions between charged particles and electromagnetic fields; and its generalization, quantum field theory.

Significant Figures - Rules

Significant figures are critical when reporting scientific data because they give the reader an idea of how well you could actually measure/report your data. Before looking at a few examples, let's summarize the rules for significant figures. 1) ALL non-zero numbers (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9) are ALWAYS significant. 2) ALL zeroes between non-zero numbers are ALWAYS significant. 3) ALL zeroes which are SIMULTANEOUSLY to the right of the decimal point AND at the end of the number are ALWAYS significant. 4) ALL zeroes which are to the left of a written decimal point and are in a number >= 10 are ALWAYS significant. A helpful way to check rules 3 and 4 is to write the number in scientific notation. If you can/must get rid of the zeroes, then they are NOT significant. Examples: How many significant figures are present in the following numbers? Number 48,923 3.967 900.06 0.0004 (= 4 E-4) 8.1000 501.040 3,000,000 (= 3 E+6) 10.0 (= 1.00 E+1) # Significant Figures Rule(s) 5 4 5 1 5 6 1 3 1 1 1,2,4 1,4 1,3 1,2,3,4 1 1,3,4

MHS Chemistry Scientific Notation Rules Measurements in science are often of very tiny amounts (like the radius of an atom) or very large amounts (like the radius of the Earth's orbit). These numbers can be represented in several ways. One way is to use measuring units that are about the correct size. In that case, the radius of a neon atom is about 0.35 angstroms, and the radius of the Earth's orbit is 1 Astronomical Unit. But what's an angstrom? And what is an Astronomical Unit? And how would we work with these two numbers in the same problem? The solution is to measure them based on the same units. In that case, the radius of the neon atom is about 0.000 000 000 035 meters, and the radius of the Earth's orbit is about 150 000 000 000 meters. This at least lets you compare the two numbers, but it's still not a very convenient way to write them. The solution to that is to use scientific notation. In scientific notation, the significant digits are always all shown, with the decimal point after the first one. This number is shown multiplied by 10 raised to the appropriate power to give the number the correct value. For the radius of the Earth's orbit, this would be 1.5x1011 m. For a number smaller than one, the exponent is a negative number, to show that the significant part of the numer is divided by 10 a certain number of times. The radius of a neon atom is therefore written as 3.5x10-11 m. For ease of typing (and writing) these can also be written using the letter "p" for "times 10 to the positive" and "n" for "times 10 to the negative." The radius of the Earth's orbit would be 1.5p11 m and the radius of the neon atom would be 3.5n11 m. To change the appearance of a number that is in scientific notation to floating point notation ("normal numbers"), use the following rules:

If the exponent is positive, move the decimal place to the right that many times. Add zeroes if necessary, but if you do remember not to write the decimal point. If the exponent is negative, move the decimal place to the left that many times. Add zeroes if necessary, but make sure you do write the decimal point.

Extra One of the nice things about scientific notation is that the exponents have common names in the SI (metric) system. For instance, any time the exponent is +3, you can use the prefix kilo-. For a complete list of metric prefixes,click here. Also, many calculators have an option besides scientific or floating point (normal) notation called "engineering notation." This way of writing numbers is very similar to scientific notation, except that instead of requiring exactly one number before the decimal point, up to three digits are allowed as long as the exponent is a multiple of three. This way, the exponent can always be translated instantly to a metric prefix.

When rounding whole numbers there are two rules to remember: I will use the term rounding digit - which means: When asked to round to the closest tens - your rounding digit is the second number to the left (ten's place) when working with whole numbers. When asked to round to the nearest hundred, the third place from the left is the rounding digit (hundreds place). Rule One. Determine what your rounding digit is and look to the right side of it. If the digit is 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4 do not change the rounding digit. All digits that are on the right hand side of the requested rounding digit will become 0. Rule Two. Determine what your rounding digit is and look to the right of it. If the digit is 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9, your rounding digit rounds up by one number. All digits that are on the right hand side of the requested rounding digit will become 0. Rounding with decimals: When rounding numbers involving decimals, there are 2 rules to remember: Rule One Determine what your rounding digit is and look to the right side of it. If that digit is 4, 3, 2, or 1, simply drop all digits to the right of it. Rule Two Determine what your rounding digit is and look to the right side of it. If that digit is 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9 add one to the rounding digit and drop all digits to the right of it. Rule Three: Some teachers prefer this method: This rule provides more accuracy and is sometimes referred to as the 'Banker's Rule'. When the first digit dropped is 5 and there are no digits following or the digits following are zeros, make the preceding digit even (i.e. round off to the nearest even digit). E.g., 2.315 and 2.325 are both 2.32 when rounded off to the nearest hundredth. Note: The rationale for the third rule is that approximately half of the time the number will be rounded up and the other half of the time it will be rounded down. An example: 765.3682 becomes: 1000 when asked to round to the nearest thousand (1000) 800 when asked to round to the nearest hundred (100) 770 when asked to round to the nearest ten (10) 765 when asked to round to the nearest one (1) 765.4 when asked to round to the nearest tenth (10th) 765.37 when asked to round to the nearest hundredth (100th.) 765.368 when asked to round to the nearest thousandth (1000th) Try the rounding worksheets complete with solutions..

Basic operations involving scientific notation.

I two bases are the same but are being raised to different exponents, here are the rules to follow: MULTIPLICATION: When multiplying exponents with like bases, simply add the exponents and keep the base the same. DIVISION: When dividing exponents with like bases, simply subtract the exponents and keep the base the same. SUBTRACTION AND ADDITION: I'm sorry to break it to you, but you really can't add or subtract numbers with exponents without first having to write out the full number. Exponents really only mean multiplication, so you can't undo them with subtraction or addition. Please note that these rules only work with like bases. Attempting these with different bases will get you nowhere.

The Factor-Label Method or Dimensional Analysis

During the course of this year you will be required to solve many types of problems that involve units. Often, you will be required to change from one unit to another. This is not actually very hard, because it is something that you do in your day-to-day life. For example, the running time of a movie may be listed as 90 minutes. You could convert that to hours using a conversion factor. A conversion factor is an expression for the relationship between units. In this case you would be using the relationship 1 hour = 60 minutes. You can set up a factor-label problem as shown below: Step 1. Show what you are given on the left, and what units you want on the right.

Step 2. Insert the required conversion factors to change between units. In this case we need only one conversion factor, and we show it as the fraction, 1hr/60min. We put the units of minutes on the bottom so that they will cancel out with the minutes on the top of the given.

Step 3. Cancel units where you can, and solve the math.

Of course, most of us can do the above calculation in our heads. This is because we are very familiar with the units and the conversion factors involved. Not all conversions will be that easy, but if you follow the steps correctly, there should be little chance for mistake. Follow the example below. Example 1. A student determines that the density of a certain material is 4.46 g/cm3. What would be the density of this material in g/L? Well, in order to solve this problem you must remember that 1000 cm3 = 1L. Then follow the same steps as the previous problem. Step 1. Show what you are given on the left, and what units you want on the right.

Step 2. Insert the required conversion factors to change between units. Note that I have changed the "look" of the fractions to show the cancellation of units more clearly.

Step 3. Cancel units where you can, and solve the math.

Answer - 4460 g/L (note that we are showing the correct number of significant digits.)

Example 2. Imagine that water is leaking from a container, at a rate of 1.2 ml/hour. If this rate does not change, how many liters of water will be lost in a week? We can make a list of the conversion factors that we will need. 1 L = 1000 ml 24 h = 1 day 7 day = 1 week

Step 1. Show what you are given on the left, and what units you want on the right.

Step 2. Insert the required conversion factors to change between units.

Step 3. Cancel units where you can, and solve the math.

We must round to two significant digits, as shown in the original problem. Answer - 0.20 L/week