Advanced Placement Physics

This is the message recieved from the College Board.

"The College Board is pleased to announce that your Physics B course is authorized to use the "AP®" designation for the 2007-08 academic year. The College Board applauds and recognizes your efforts to provide your students with the academic rigor and college-level experience that is the promise of AP.

What Does Authorization Mean?
The authorization of your course is an official recognition by the College Board that your course meets or exceeds the expectations colleges and universities have for your AP subject. Your syllabus was reviewed by experienced college and university faculty, who have confirmed that it outlines how your course provides a college-level learning opportunity to students. This authorization grants your school permission to use the "AP" designation on students' transcripts in association with the authorized course. In addition, your course will appear in a publicly-available ledger to be published on the Web in November 2007. "

Thanksgiving homework:

page 151
3,6,7,11,15,23,27,32

 

Looking for a syllabus? Mine is here. The College Board lists several others here.

• Identify all the variables by name.
• List the units of measurement for each variable. You may need to look these up somewhere. Since you will not have books, I recommend the web site hyperphysics.
• Identify every relationship between variables. Ignore constants such as 1/2, or physical constants which cannot change such as the speed of light. Identify the name of the relationship, sketch the graph showing the relationship, and write a sentence describing the relationship. This will be from 3-10 relationships per equation.
• Create a sample problem for each equation where you make up values for all the variables except one, and solve for that. If you're aggressive abouit it, make a sample problem for each variable.

The punkins are about 1 lb. each.
The post closes to us is perhaps 4.5 feet tall, as is the next post farther away.
The punkin is fired between the posts, and I am standing perpendicular to the line of fire as I took the picture. If you measure the angle of firing from the picture it should be reasonably accurate.
Each frame is 1/15 of a second apart, and these three frames are consecutive, so from the first to the third is a total of 2/15 of a second.

Calculate the following:
Final velocity based on the three frames shown.
Average acceleration during the three frames shown.
Mass of the punkin in kg.
Force required to cause the punkin to accelerate at this rate.
Maximum altitude.
Range.
Time to highest point and total time of flight.

The operator told me the punkins travel around 60 yards to a nearby wagon in the adjacent field. Does that sound about right?

 

 

 

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Here is a link to the companion site for our new textbook: Click here. Solutions to problems marked "web" are here. There are several other study guide-type pages as well.

The AstronomyTeacher.com online store now offers a "Deer Valley AP Physics Equation shirt" with all the equations from the 2003-2004 exam printed upside down. The shirt has been updated to make the letters darker and the print on the back has been added with the equations right-side up, for the person sitting behind you. No, you cannot wear this shirt during the exam. But in general, you can wear it in class. It's OK to order it now, so go for it...You can also wear the shirt during the final.

About AP Physics

I study nuclear science
I love my classes
I got a crazy teacher, he wears dark glasses
Things are going great, and they're only getting better
I'm doing all right, gettin' good grades
The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades
...gotta wear shades

--Timbuk 3 (1988)

This course provides an understanding of the basic principles involved with physical concepts and the ability to apply these principles in the solution of problems. The course content includes topics in mechanics, kinetic theory and thermodynamics, electricity and magnetism, waves and optics, and modern physics. Students are encouraged to take the AP Physics "B" exam in the spring. Some support will be offered for students wishing to take the "C" exam, including after school tutoring. Most students should take the "B" test.

• Note: Gr. 10 students may take this course as an elective while concurrently enrolled in Biology CP
• Board Policy 6465: Special demands of this course may require students to complete assignments over vacation/off-track periods.
• Students who do well on the AP Physics B or C exams will be offered college credit for introductory physics by some institutions. Not all institutions offer such credit and the interested student should check with individual schools.
• Since this is a challenging course--possibly one of the most challenging courses in high school--students will be assigned a gread deal of homework, not all of which will be checked.

UC a-g Requirements Information

The University of California counts Physics as a UC - d course.

The purpose of this course is to prepare students for the AP Physics B exam. Some after school sessions will be held for students interested in pursuing the Physics C test, which is given at the same time as the B. I will teach the course with the expectation that all students will take the AP exam if they decide to enroll in AP physics. Otherwise, they really should be enrolled in general physics. Greater success will be achieved if students have had either 9th grade science or General Physics prior to taking this course, but those courses are not official prerequisites.

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Textbook and Supplies

College Physics by Serway and Faughn

This is an excellent physics book and we have seen dramatic increases in our scores since we began using it. Please take care of it because the binding is fragile.

The following purchases are recommended for this class:

• Scientific calculator (programmable is not needed)
• Colored pencils
• Computer with internet access and CD-ROM (Mac is preferred)
• 360 degree protractor
• Ruler (metric)
• Graph paper

Lab notebook (a looseleaf binder is acceptable)

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Links and Resources

Although many of these links look like they are just for teachers, many of them lead directly to hundreds of other links suitable for students seeking to understand specific concepts.

My favorite physics page is Hyperphysics, a graphically organized general reference to physics with interactive examples. :http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/hframe.html

The AP CENTRAL AP PHYSICS B PAGE

This includes a link to the equation pages. Be sure to use the B equations and not the C equations. Download the course description to see the topics on the exam.

Conceptual Physics resource page-- A HUGE list of links sorted by chapters in Hewitt's Conceptual Physics book
http://www.phschool.com/science/cpsurf/

Job database for physics majors
http://www.psrc-online.org/careers/jobsearch.html

PION: Northern California Physics Teachers organization
http://phys-astro.sonoma.edu/people/faculty/tenn/PION.html

Over 200 Physics lessons including lesson plans
http://www.iit.edu/~smile/physinde.html

American Association of Physics Teachers Science Resource Center
http://www.psrc-online.org/

American Science and Surplus (fun stuff!)
http://www.sciplus.com/

Exploratorium "Snacks" (small demos)
http://www.exploratorium.edu/snacks/snackintro.html

Surplus hardware and want-ads
http://www.labx.com/v2/categories.cfm

Official AP Physics course outline from College Board
http://www.collegeboard.org/ap/physics/html/cours002.html

Physics Shareware for Macintosh:
http://www.ecs.fullerton.edu/~jperryl/Physics.html#anchor361120

University of Maryland Physics Demonstration List
http://www.physics.umd.edu/deptinfo/facilities/lecdem/indexx.htm

American Association of Physics Teachers
http://www.aapt.org/

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Document Archive

Please note: a complete list of all handouts provided in this format can be seen at this address:

http://homepage.mac.com/astronomyteacher/FileSharing1.html

Please note: Most of these documents are in Adobe Acrobat format. They require the use of the (free) Adobe Acrobat reader. Please note: Most of these documents are in Adobe Acrobat format. They require the use of the (free) Adobe Acrobat reader. This is used instead of html because the document formatting remains identical to what the printed version looks like, no matter what your browser settings, and the format is universal to all computer platforms (Windows, DOS, Unix,Sun, and Mac). Requires Adobe Acrobat 3 or higher. IF YOU HAVE ACROBAT READER 5.0, YOU SHOULD DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL THE LATEST UPDATE WHICH CORRECTS PROBLEMS WITH OS X AND WINDOWS XP.

A properly installed, recent copy of Adobe Acrobat reader should install a plug-in within your browser application and these links should work automatically. If you've installed the reader and when you click on the link, you still get a screen of random symbols, right-click (windows) or click and hold (Mac) until the pop-up menu appears and choose "Save link As..." from the list that appears. Choose Save Link as Source, and name the file something that ends in .pdf if it doesn't happen automatically. Then start Acrobat reader, and choose Open from the File menu. You should then be able to open the file.

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AP PHYSICS NEWS BLOG:

Here are interesting articles and links to items of interest to AP Physics students. Disclaimer: Although I select the content for this blog, links sometimes expire or change. Click here to open this blog in a new separate window (may work better). To see the blog embedded below, you need a reader compatible with Atom-formatted XML feeds. It can also be subscribed with a news reader. Click here to return to the top of the page.

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