Talking about Physics: English Vocabulary List

a branch of physics that studies the relationship between electric and magnetic fields, encompassing the electromagnetic force and electromagnetic interactions

"Electromagnetism is a force that combines electricity and magnetism together."

"Students in the physics class learned how electromagnetism affects everyday technology."

a branch of engineering and physics that deals with the mechanical properties of gases, especially air, and the application of pressurized air to produce motion or mechanical effects

"Pneumatics uses compressed air to power tools like drills and heavy hammers."

"Pneumatics is a branch of engineering that uses pressurized gas to produce mechanical motion"

the bending, spreading, and interference of waves as they encounter obstacles or pass through narrow openings, often observed in the behavior of light, sound, or other waves

"Diffraction bends light waves around corners."

"Diffraction is the spreading of waves around obstacles"

a scientific idea that all particles are tiny vibrating strings, not point-like dots, and these vibrations create different particles and forces

"String theory has many dimensions."

"String theory is a theoretical framework in physics proposing that point-like particles are actually one-dimensional vibrating strings at the smallest quantum scales."

a fundamental particle with half-integer spin, including electrons and their heavier counterparts, as well as neutrinos

"Electrons are a type of lepton."

"A lepton is a fundamental particle with half-integer spin, including electrons and their heavier counterparts."

a tiny particle made up of even smaller parts called quarks, like protons and neutrons

"Protons and neutrons are hadrons."

"A hadron is a composite particle made of quarks bound by the strong force"

the speed at which something moves in a specific direction

"The car's velocity increased quickly."

"The car was traveling at a dangerous velocity when it crashed into the tree on the roadside."

(physics) the maximum distance a vibrating material, sound wave, etc. such as a pendulum travels from its first position

"The amplitude of the sound wave determines how loud the noise is."

"Amplitude is the maximum extent of a wave's displacement from its equilibrium position"

tiny particles that make up matter and have a property called spin, like the building blocks of atoms

"Electrons are examples of fermions."

"Every fermion in the universe follows a special rule about sharing energy levels."

a tiny particle with whole-number spin, such as photons or the Higgs boson, often associated with carrying fundamental forces or giving mass to other particles

"Photons are examples of bosons."

"A boson is a force-carrying particle that obeys Bose-Einstein statistics"

the force that acts on an object moving in a circular path, directed toward the center of the circle or the axis of rotation, preventing the object from moving in a straight line

"Centripetal force keeps planets in orbit."

"Centripetal force is the inward-directed force required to keep an object moving in a curved path"

the unit of electric charge in the International System of Units (SI), equal to the charge transported by a constant current of one ampere in one second

"A coulomb measures electric charge."

"A coulomb is the SI unit of electric charge"

the change in frequency or wavelength of a wave in relation to an observer who is moving relative to the source of the wave, producing a shift in pitch or color

"The Doppler effect changes sound pitch."

"The Doppler effect is the change in observed frequency of a wave when the source and observer are moving relative to each other."

the energy possessed by an object due to its motion, defined as one-half the mass of the object multiplied by the square of its velocity, expressed by the equation KE = 0.5 * m * v^2

"Moving objects have kinetic energy."

"Kinetic energy is the energy an object possesses due to its motion"