Finally, some nuts and bolts physics! We’ll fly through this grade school stuff post-haste and I’ll try to stick to the heart-pounding, edge-of-your-seat, action-packed examples so you don’t fall asleep.
There are three laws at the heart of Newtonian mechanics:
An object keeps its state of motion unless acted upon by an external force
For every force, there [...]
Tags: F=ma, G (gravitational constant), Kepler's Law, kinetic friction, Newton (unit), newtonian gravity, static friction, tensionDimensional Analysis
First, let’s do a super-fast review of dimensional analysis since it will be your best method of spot checking your calculations, not to mention a handy way of guessing answers on obnoxiously long multiple-choice tests.
When solving for a variable in an equation, dimensional analysis will tell you if you’re on the right track or [...]
A vector is just a set of numbers used to describe a single quantity (direction and magnitude) and from here on in, I’ll indicate a variable that is a vector by making it boldface. So the components of a vector a are:
This means that each component is equal to the product of the vector’s magnitude [...]
Tags: cartesian coordinates, cross product, cylindrical coordinates, dot product, scalar triple product, spherical coordinates, unit coordinate vectors, vector triple product, vectorsOur main focus will be the GRE subject test but I hope that The Prodigal Physicist will act as a comprehensive guide for everyone. In regards to the test though, let’s look at what we’re up against.
The Physics GRE consists of 100 five-option multiple-choice questions (some of which are grouped and based on graphical elements [...]
