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PY106 pre-class video for session 6 - Electric potential
In this video, we will discuss electric potential. Note that electric potential is not the same thing as electric potential energy, although they are closely related. Once again, we'll learn by analogy with gravity, as equipotentials (lines of [...]constant potential) are just as useful to us are contour lines on a map are to a hiker. We'll look at the connection between electric potential and electric field, and we'll also look at the connection between electric potential and electric potential energy.
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PY106 pre-class video for session 5 - Electric potential energy
In this video, we talk about electric potential energy. We'll start off discussing potential energy in a uniform field, and then move on to talk about potential energy of pairs of interacting charges. In each case, we'll draw on what we learned from [...]gravity and see how to apply that knowledge to charged objects interacting with electric fields, or with other charged objects. We'll wrap things up by calculating the electric potential energy of a set of point charges.
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PY106 pre-class video for session 4 - More electric field
In this video, we'll talk some more about the electric field. We'll look at the motion of charged particles in a uniform electric field. After that, we'll talk some more about the connection between the force a charged particle experiences, and the [...]electric field at the location of the particle (the field because of other nearby charged particles, for instance). Finally, we'll introduce the concept of a test charge, and do an example in which we use the known force experienced by a test charge to find the sign and magnitude of a nearby charge.
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PY106 pre-class video for session 3 - The electric field
In this video, we motivate the idea of the electric field, which is one measure of the way a charged object influences the region around it. It sounds abstract and complicated, until you realize that the electric field, E, is for charge what the [...]gravitational field, g, is for mass. Note that g is often referred to as the acceleration due to gravity, but "gravitational field" is a fine name for it. The video covers an example, compares g and E a little, and then shows some field line pictures and equivalent field vector pictures. Don't be intimidated by those, though - just remember that whatever we did with g will work with E, too.
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PY106 pre-class video for session 2 - Coulomb's law
In this video, we go over Coulomb's law, which allows us to calculate the force that one charged object exerts on a second charged object. The equation describing this interaction between charged objects has the same form as Newton's universal law of [...]gravitation, so we'll discuss the parallels between objects with mass, interacting through the gravitational force, and objects with charge, interacting through the electrostatic force. Finally, we'll go over a small example that involves the application of Coulomb's law.
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PY105 pre-class video for session 40 - Heat capacity, and a sample thermodynamics problem
In our final video of the semester, we talk about heat capacity for an ideal gas, and then we go through an example problem. The example thermodynamics problem involves the ideal gas law, the first law of thermodynamics, and calculations of work and [...]the change in internal energy.
Look for PY106 videos in 2011, covering electricity and magnetism, waves and optics, and some modern physics.
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PY105 pre-class video for session 39 - The first law of thermodynamics
In this video, we take a look at the P-V diagram (the graph of pressure vs. volume), to see how it can provide temperature information. Then, we go over the first law of thermodynamics, which is essentially energy conservation applied to a [...]thermodynamic system. We wrap up the video by seeing how the P-V diagram can be used to find the work done by a system of ideal gas, and we go through a numerical example to find the work done in a particular case.
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PY105 pre-class video for session 37 - Temperature
This will be our first video (of four) related to thermal physics. In this video, we will define temperature, and then look at three common temperature scales, and talk about how to convert between them. We will also take a quick look at thermal [...]expansion, the idea that an object will change size as its temperature changes.
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PY105 pre-class video for session 36 - Fluids 3, fluid dynamics
This is the third and final video about fluids, focusing on flowing fluids (fluid dynamics). We'll use a very simple model of flowing fluids, to which we can apply two basic equations. One is the continuity equation, which basically says that the [...]narrower you make a pipe, the faster the flow will be. The second equation is Bernoulli's equation, which comes from applying energy conservation to fluids.
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