Vocab

Vector Quantity

A quantity that specifies magnitude and direction.

Vector

An arrow thats length and direction represent a vector quantity's magnitude and direction.

Force

Push or pull

Kilogram

Standard unit for mass

Perturbation

Term used in astronomy to describe alterations in an object's orbit caused by gravitational interactions between bodies.

Pion

The least massive type of meson.

Mass

measure of the inertia of a material object. The quantity of matter in an object. It is also the measure of the inertia or sluggishness that an object exhibits in response to any effort made to start, stop, or change its state of motion in any way.

Proton

most common hadron, a baryon with electric charge +1 equal and opposite to that of the electron. Protons have a basic structure of 2 up quarks and one down quark. The nucleus of a hydrogen atom is a proton.

Lepton

A class of elementary particles that includes the electron. These particles of matter do not feel the strong force.

Meson

A class of hadronic particles which are exchanged between neutrons and protons inside the atomic nucleus and which bind the nucleus together. Free mesons decay into protons and leptons.

Standard Model

A collection of theories that embodies all of our current understandings about the behavior of fundamental particles.

Weightlessness

A condition encountered in free fall in which a support force is lacking.

Photon

A force carrier particle of the electromagnetic interactions

Kaon

A meson containing a strange quark (or antiquark). Neutral kaons come in two kinds, short-lived and long-lived. The long-lived kaons decay into two pions, a CP violation process.

Neutrino

A neutral particle that hardly interacts at all. Neutrinos are very common and could hold the answer to many questions in physics.

Higgs Boson

A particle predicted only by theory. It is linked with the mechanism by which physicists think particles acquire mass.

CP Violation

A subtle effect observed in the decays of certain particles that betrays nature's preference for matter over antimatter

Atom

All ordinary matter is made of atoms, them themselves composed of a nucleus and electrons. The protons and the neutrons in the nucleus are made of quarks, the smallest known antiparticle. The smallest component of an element having the chemical properties of the element

Dwarf Planet

Any celestial body that is reasonably spherical, orbits the sun, and isn't a satellite of any other planet

Electron

Best known of all the elementary particles, discovered by J.J. Thompson in 1897. The electron is a spin 1/2 fermion. It is subject to the weak interactions, but in addition it carries a negative electric charge, and hence experiences the electromagnetic force.

Antimatter

Every kind of matter has a corresponding antiparticle. Charged antiparticles have the opposite electric charge to their matter counterparts.

Dark Energy

Form of energy that permeates all of space and increases the rate of expansion.

Static Friction

Friction that resists an object's beginning in motion

Strong Force

Holds quarks together within protons in the nucleus from flying apart under the influence of the repulsive electrical force between them. Unlike the more familiar effects of gravity and electromagnetism, where the forces become weaker with distance, the strong force becomes stronger with distance.

Inverse Square Law

Law relating to the intensity of an effect to the inverse square of the distance from the cause. Intensity-*1/d squared

Fundamental Particle

One of the smallest known particles from which all other particles are made of.

Newton

Sci unit for force

Model/Scientific Model

Scientists construct and develop models to describe scientific theories in the context of related phenomena. A model is based on a set of parameters obtained from actual experiments.

Positron

The antiparticle of the electron.

Antiproton

The antiparticle of the proton.

Boson

The collective name given to the particles that carry forces between particles of matter.

Big Bang

The name given to the explosive origin of the universe. Theory of how solar system began.

Friction

The resistive force that opposes the motion

Dynamic Equilibrium

The type of equilibrium that exists when an object is moving at a constant speed in a straight line path.

Static Equilibrium

The type of equilibrium that exists when an object is not moving. Net force= zero.

Equilibrium Rule

The vector sum of forces acting on a non-accelerating object equals zero.

Forces/Interactions

There are four fundamental forces in nature. gravity is the most familiar to us, but it is the weakest. Electromagnetism is the force responsible for thunderstorms and carrying electricity into our homes. The two other forces, weak and strong, are confined to the atomic nucleus. The strong force binds the nucleus together, whereas the weak force causes some nuclei to break up. The weak force is also important in the energy generating process of stars, including the sun. Physicists would like to find a theory that can explain all of these forces. A big step forward was made i the 1960's when the electroweak theory uniting the electromagnetic and weak forces was proposed.

Dark Matter

Type of matter that does not emit radiation, makes up 26% of the universe, and is only detected through its gravitational effects.

Law of Universal Gravitation

Where F is the magnitude of the gravitational force between two point masses, G is the gravitational constant, m1 is the mass of the first object, m2 if the mass of the second object and r squared is the distance between the two objects. Fg= Gm1m2/r squared.

Weak Force

acts on all matter particles and leads to among other phenomena the decay of neutrons and allows the conversion of a proton into a neutron.

Net Force

all forces that act on an object

Neutron

baryon with electric charge zero; it is a hadron with a basic structure of 2 down quarks and one up quark.

Electromagnetic Force

binds negative electrons to the positive nuclei in atoms and underlies the interactions between atoms that give rise to molecules and to solids and liquids. Unlike gravity, it can produce both attractive and repulsive effects. Exerts force on all electrically charged particles. Accounts for electricity and magnetism

Gluon

carries the strong force (one of the four fundamental forces or interactions between particles).

Quark

class of elementary particles . Are particles that feel the strong force

Nucleon

collective name for protons and neutrons.

Fermion

elementary particle, such as a neutron, proton, or electron, that is subject to the exclusion principle and whose spin is half an odd integer.

Normal/Support Force

force that supports an object

Weight

force upon an object due to gravity. Gravitational force with which an object pushes against a supporting force

Muon

particle similar to the electron but 200 times more massive.

Volume

space inside an object; space occupied by an object

Hadron

subatomic particle that contains quarks, antiquarks, and gluons, and so experiences the strong force.

Particles

two groups of elementary particles , quarks and leptons. Quarks are up and down, charm, and strange, and top and bottom. Leptons are electron, electron neutrino, muon, muon neutrino, and tau, tau neutrino. There are four fundamental forces, or interactions, between particles, which are carried by special particles called bosons.