power, It is the rate at which work is being performed or the rate at which energy is being transferred., 1st Newton’s law, When the net force on a body is zero, the body will move with constant velocity (which may be zero); in other words, it will move on a straight line with constant speed (which may be zero)., impulse, It is the product of the average net force and the time for which the force acts., emissivity, the ratio of the intensity radiated by a body to the intensity radiated by a black body of the same temperature, Inertia, It keeps the body in the same state of motion when no forces act on the body, angular momentum, When the net torque on a system is zero, the _____ ________ is conserved; that is, it stays constant., amplitude, The maximum displacement from equilibrium of a wave or oscillation, 3rd Newton’s law, If body X exerts a force on body Y, then body Y will exert an equal and opposite force on body X., Isolated/conserved, If no work is done on the system from outside, the system is called ________ and in that case the total mechanical energy of the system does not change. We say that the total mechanical energy of the system is ________., conduction, Method of thermal energy transfer based on collisions of electro ns with atoms, linear momentum, It is the product of the mass of a body and its velocity, driven oscillations, oscillations when an external periodic force acts on the system, black body, A theoretical body that absorbs all the radiation incident on it and radiates the maximum possible intensity for a given temperature, elastic, When kinetic energy is conserved, the collision is said to be…, direct current (DC), rate of flow of charge through the cross sectional area of a conductor, mass, The moment of inertia is to rotational motion what _____ is to linear motion., drag force, the force acting against the motion of an object that is moving th rough a fluid, force, Torque is to rotational motion what ______ is to linear motion., antinode, Point on a standing wave where the displacement is a maximum, Beta minus decay, A decay of a nucleus producing an electron and an -anti-neutrino, Apparent brightness, the power received from a star per unit area, chain reaction, A reaction in which the products are used to keep the reaction going, gamma decay, decay of a nucleus producing a short wavelength photon, heat exchanger, The part of the reactor where the thermal energy generated in the moderator is extracted, coherent, Sources with the same frequency and a constant phase difference between them, magnetic flux density, the force per unit charge on a charge moving with unit velocity at right angles to the field, Lenz's law, the induced emf will be such so as to oppose the change in the magnetic flux; to energy conservation it is equivalent, Coulomb's law, The force between two point charges is inversely proportiona l to the square of the separation and proportional to the product of the charges, equilibrium, the state when the net force on a system is zero, luminosity, the power radiated by a star, Carnot cycle, A thermodynamic cycle consisting of twoisothermal and two adiabatic curves, damping, the loss of energy of an oscillating system due to the presence of resistance forces, efficiency, the ratio of useful work or power to input work or power, gravitational/electric potential energy, the work that needs to be done by an external agent in order to bring a set of masses/charges from where they were separated by an infinite distance to their current position, period, the time it takes for an orbiting object to make one complete revolution; the time fo r one full oscill ati on or one full wave, mole, a quantity of a substance containing as many particles as atoms in 12 g of carbon-12, Ohm's law, at constant temperature the current through a metallic conductor is proportional to the voltage across the conductor, electromagnetic wave, transverse wave moving at the speed of light in vacuum and consisting of oscillations of an electric and a magnetic field at right angles to each other, isobaric, a thermodynamic process in which pressure stays constant, emission spectrum, the set of wavelengths of light emitted by an atom, Kepler's 2nd law, the line joining a planet and the sun sweeps equal areas in equal times, 2nd Newton’s law, The net force on a body of constant mass is proportional to that body's acceleration and is in the same direction as the acceleration., escape speed, the minimum speed of an object in a gravitational field so that the object reaches infinity, internal energy, the sum of the random kinetic energy of particles and the intermolecular potential energy in a system, resistivity, the resistance of a conductor of unit length and unit cross-sectional area, gravitational/electric potential, the work done by an external agent per unit mass/charge in bringing a small point positive mass/charge from infinity to a point in an gravitational/electric field, Faraday's law, the induced emf is the rate of change of magnetic flux linkage, stopping voltage, the voltage in the photoelectric effect that makes the current zero, nuclear fusion, the joining of light nuclei to form heavier nuclei, releasing energy, greenhouse gases, gases in the atmosphere that are capable of absorbing infrared radiation, peak wavelength, the wavelength corresponding to the peak of the black body spectrum curve, ground state, the state of lowest energy, longitudinal, a wave where the di splacement is parallel to the direction of energy transfer, half-life, time after which the activity is reduced by a factor of 2, mechanical wave, a disturbance that transfers energy and momentum through oscillations of the particles of a medium, harmonics, standing wave with a frequency that is an integral multiple of the first harmonic frequency, monochromatic, light of a single wavelength, Kepler's 3rd law, the period of revolution of a planet around the sun is proportional to the 3/2 power of the semi-major axis of the ellipse, proper length, the length of an object measured by an observer in a frame of reference in which the object is stationa ry with respect to the observer, specific heat capacity, the energy required to change the temperature of a unit mass by one degree, supernova, the explosion of a red super giant hurling mass and energy into space, Hooke's law, the tension in a spring is proportional to the extension or compression, induced fission, the splitting of a large nucleus into two smaller nuclei after it has absorbed a neutron, radioactivity, the phenomenon where particles and energy are emitted by an unstable nucleus, inertial reference frame, a reference frame which is not accelerating, isotopes, nuclei of the same element containing different numbers of neutrons, reference frame, a set of co-ordinate axes and a set of clocks at every point in space, main sequence, the stable phase in the life of a star; the stars produce energy in their core, from of hydrogen into helium nuclear fusion, principle of superposition, when two or more waves of the same type a rrive at a given point in space at the same time, the displacement of the medium at that point is the algebraic sum of the individual displacements, mass defect, the difference between the mass of the nucleons and the mass of a nucleus, path difference, the difference in distance of a point from each of the two sources, photoelectric effect, the emission of electrons from a metallic surface when light is incident on the surface, work function, the amount of energy required to free an electron from a photo-surfrace, red-shift, the shift in wavelength towards larger wavelengths for a source getting further away, photon, quantum of energy, white dwarfs, small, hot stars no longer undergoing fusion ; they get dimmer as they cool down, potential difference, the work done per unit charge in moving a point charge from one point to another, proper time, the time interval between two events th at occur in a reference frame in which both events occur at the same position, worldline, a line on a spacetime diagram relating a sequence of events, the angle of which is related to the speed at which something is moving, quantised energy, discrete energy given by a formula involving an integer, rarefaction, a point where the density of the medium is lowest, wavefront, a surface through crests and normal to the direction of energy transfer of the wave, travelling wave, A wave that transfers energy from one place to another th ro ugh oscillations of a medium, spontaneous, it cannot be prevented from happening or forced to happen, solar constant, the intensity of solar radiation received at the upper atmosphere of the earth, standing wave, a wave formed by the superposition of two identical travelling waves in opposite directions, temperature, a measure of the average random kinetic energy of particles, Wien's law, the peak wavelength is inversely proportional to the kelvin temperature, terminal speed, the constant speed attained when the resistance fo rce becomes equal to the force pushing the body, Stefan- Boltzmann's law, the radiated intensity is proportional to the fourth power of the kelvin temperature

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