Download PHYSICS

PHYSICS
I Mathematics Line 1st year
6 periods theory + 2 periods laboratory work per week.
Textbooks: Aflfræði I og rafrásir (Mechanics and electric circuits) and Aflfræði II by Davíð
Þorsteinsson.
Dynamics of a particle: SI-units, vectors, translation, velocity and acceleration in one
dimension, free fall. Force and acceleration, Newtons laws of motion, Hooke’s law, frictional
forces, coefficient of friction, motion on an incline. Energy and work, power, kinetic energy,
potential energy, conservative forces, mechanical energy, energy of a spring, inner energy,
conservation of energy, simple machines.
Pressure and heat: Pressure in liquids and gases, Archimedes’ law, Torricellis experiment,
Bernoullie’s law. Temperature, thermometers, the Kelvin scale of temperature. Ideal gas, the
gas equation, first law of thermodynamics, molar specific heat of gases. Heat and energy,
specific heat, latent heat. Second law of thermodynamics, heat engines, efficiency of engines,
entropy.
Electricity: Charge, Coulomb’s law, electric field, current, voltage, Millikan’s experiment,
electric power, Ohm’s law, resistance, resistivity, emf, electric circuits, Kirchhoff’s laws.
Motion in 2 dimensions: Velocity and acceleration as vectors, two dimensional motion in
constant gravitational field.
Impulse and momentum: Impulse, momentum of a particle, conservation of momentum,
elastic and inelastic collisions in 1 and 2 dimensions, the motion of centre of mass.
Circular motion: Centripetal acceleration and force, inertial forces, Coriolis force.
Oscillations: Simple harmonic motion, energy of an oscillator, simple pendulum, damping,
forced oscillations, resonance.
Waves in 1 dimension: Longitudinal and transverse waves, wavelength, frequency,
amplitude, reflection, interference, mathematical description of waves, standing waves, beats,
Doppler effect, intensity of sound, decibel.
Waves in a plane: Huygen’s law, refractions, reflection, diffraction, Young’s experiment,
diffraction grating, spectroscope, diffraction of light in a single slit, resolution of optical
instruments, thin films.
Geometrical optics: Light rays, reflection, refraction, Snell’s law, total internal reflection,
dispersion, Fermat’s law, lenses, real and virtual images, lensmaker’s equation, lens
abberations, the eye, optical instruments.
Error handling: Estimate of uncertainty, significant figures, error in sums and differences,
error in products and quotients, mean, standard deviation, estimating errors from a linear
graph.
2nd year Mathematics Line Physics I
6 periods theory + 2 periods laboratory work per week
Textbooks: Aflfræði II and Rafsegulmagn og nútímaeðlisfræði by Davíð Þorsteinsson.
Gravitation: Kepler’s laws, Newton’s law of gravitation, the Cavendish experiment, circular
motion in gravitational field, gravitational potential, binding energy, escape velocity.
Equilibrium and rotation of rigid bodies: Torque, conditions of equlibrium, centre of
gravity, torque as a vector quantity, rotational energy, moment of inertia, angular momentum,
consevation of angular momentum, gyroscope.
Electrostatics: Electric flux, Gauss’ law, electric field due to a charged plane, cylinder and
sphere, electric potential
Capacitors: Capacitance, dielectrics, energy of a capacitor, charging and discharging of a
capacitor through a resistor, time constant of an RC-circuit.
Electromagnetism: Magnetic field, Laplace’s law, electric motor, Biot-Savart-law, magnetic
field around straight conductor, magnetic field in a solenoid, definition of ampere, earth’s
magnetic field, movement of charged particles in an electromagnetic field, Loretz force, mass
spectrometer. Magnetic flux, Faradays law of induction, self induction, inductance, ACgenerator, transformer, AC-circuits.
Relativity: Inertial systems of reference, the experiment of Michelson and Morley, Einstein’s
principle of relativity, the Lorents equations, relativity of mass, mass as an energy form.
Quantum theory: Planck’s quantum theory of radiation, photoelectric effect, Einstein’s
quantum theory of light, X-rays, Braggs’ measurement of wavelengths of X-rays, the
experiment of Rutherford, Geiger and Marsden, Rutherford’s theory of the atom, the
hypothesis of de Broglie, the experiment of Davisson and Germer, quantization of energy in
the hydrogen atom, atomic spectra, Heisenberg’s law of uncertainty, the Scrödinger equation.
Nuclear physics: Nuclear forces, binding energy of nuclei, radioactivity, half life, nuclear
energy.