Grade 12 Physics SPH4U

What is Physics?

Why study Physics?

“Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars - mere globs of gas atoms. Nothing is ‘mere’. I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more? The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination - stuck on this carousel my little eye can catch one million year old light.”

“A vast pattern - of which I am a part... What is the pattern or the meaning or the why? It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little more about it. For far more marvellous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined it. Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must remain silent?” (Richard Feynman, Nobel laureate in Physics)

Can you survive free-falling elevator by jumping up just before it hits the ground? What is the quantity of water drunk by Canadians in a year? How many years of drinking water could Lake Ontario provide without being replenished? How much carbon dioxide is expelled into the air by automobiles in Toronto each year?

How does the spin cycle of a washing machine use circular motion to remove water from clothes? How does the motion of a dancer leaping horizontally off of a platform differ from that of one who steps off of the platform? Satellites revolve around the earth using circular motion. What is required for them to travel in geosynchronous orbit? (i.e. to be located over the same spot on earth at all times)

How are the principles of energy and momentum used in the design of vehicles and automobile safety features such as child car seats and airbags? While hydroelectricity is renewable and generates no greenhouse gases, what kind of adverse environmental or social impacts can they have? In terms of energy and momentum, how do sports helmets reduce the number and severity of head injuries?

How can radio frequency identification (RFID) chips be used in inventory tracking in stores and warehouses? How can the gravitational attraction between the sun and the earth, and between the earth and the moon be described? What is the relationship between gravitation, electric and magnetic fields?

How can the property of interference between light waves be used to create three dimensional images (holograms)? How has the use of holography made counterfeiting of currency more difficult? What is polarization? What do polarized glasses for 3D films do and how do they work? How does global positioning system (GPS) use the wave nature of light?

What is Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity, and what does this theory predict about the passage of time for objects traveling close to the speed of light? What is quantum mechanics and how does it affect the way we understand the nature of matter? What are some of the applications of quantum mechanics in medicine and computing? In what ways does light behave as both particles and as wave? In what ways do electrons behave as both particles and as waves?