Advanced Placement Physics

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Students explore principles of Newtonian mechanics (including rotational motion); work, energy, and power; mechanical waves and sound; and introductory, simple circuits. The course is based on six Big Ideas, which encompass core scientific principles, theories, and processes that cut across traditional boundaries and provide a broad way of thinking about the physical world.

 

The following are Big Ideas:

• Objects and systems have properties such as mass and charge. Systems may have internal structure.

• Fields existing in space can be used to explain interactions.

• The interactions of an object with other objects can be described by forces.

• Interactions between systems can result in changes in those systems.

• Changes that occur as a result of interactions are constrained by conservation laws.

• Waves can transfer energy and momentum from one location to another without the permanent transfer of mass and serve as a mathematical model for the description of other phenomena.