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Revision as of 13:40, 5 December 2015

Welcome to the Georgia Tech Wiki for Intro Physics. This resources was created so that students can contribute and curate content to help those with limited or no access to a textbook. When reading this website, please correct any errors you may come across. If you read something that isn't clear, please consider revising it!

Looking to make a contribution?

  1. Pick a specific topic from intro physics
  2. Add that topic, as a link to a new page, under the appropriate category listed below by editing this page.
  3. Copy and paste the default Template into your new page and start editing.

Please remember that this is not a textbook and you are not limited to expressing your ideas with only text and equations. Whenever possible embed: pictures, videos, diagrams, simulations, computational models (e.g. Glowscript), and whatever content you think makes learning physics easier for other students.

Source Material

All of the content added to this resource must be in the public domain or similar free resource. If you are unsure about a source, contact the original author for permission. That said, there is a surprisingly large amount of introductory physics content scattered across the web. Here is an incomplete list of intro physics resources (please update as needed).

  • A physics resource written by experts for an expert audience Physics Portal
  • A wiki book on modern physics Modern Physics Wiki
  • The MIT open courseware for intro physics MITOCW Wiki
  • An online concept map of intro physics HyperPhysics
  • Interactive physics simulations PhET
  • OpenStax algebra based intro physics textbook College Physics
  • The Open Source Physics project is a collection of online physics resources OSP
  • A resource guide compiled by the AAPT for educators ComPADRE

Organizing Categories

These are the broad, overarching categories, that we cover in two semester of introductory physics. You can add subcategories or make a new category as needed. A single topic should direct readers to a page in one of these catagories.

Notable Scientists

Collisions

Collisions are events that happen very frequently in our day-to-day world. In the realm of Physics, a collision is defined as any sort of process in which before and after a short time interval there is little interaction, but during that short time interval there are large interactions. When looking at collisions, it is first important to understand two very important principles: the Momentum Principle and the Energy Principle. Both principles serve use when talking of collisions because they provide a way in which to analyze these collisions. Collisions themselves can be categorized into 3 main different types: elastic collisions, inelastic collisions, maximally inelastic collisions. All 3 collisions will get touched on in more detail further on.

A collision is deemed "elastic" when the internal energy of the objects in the system does not change (in other words, change in internal energy equals 0). Because in an elastic collision no kinetic energy is converted over to internal energy, in any elastic collision Kfinal always equals Kinitial.

A collision is said to be "inelastic" when it is not elastic; therefore, an inelastic collision is an interaction in which some change in internal energy occurs between the colliding objects (in other words, change in internal energy does not equal 0). Examples of such changes that occur between colliding objects include, but are not limited to, things like they get hot, or they vibrate/rotate, or they deform. Because some of the kinetic energy is converted to internal energy during an inelastic collision, Kfinal does not equal Kinitial.

Resources