Advance Praise for Head First Physics;Praise for other Head First academic titles;Praise for the Head First Approach; ;Author of Head First Physics;How to Use this Book: Intro; Who is this book for?; We know what you''re thinking; We know what your brain is thinking; Metacognition: thinking about thinking; Here''s what WE did:; Here''s what YOU can do to bend your brain into submission; Read Me; The technical review team;Acknowledgments; Safari® Books Online;Chapter 1: Think Like a Physicist: In the beginning .; 1.1 Physics is the world around you; 1.2 You can get a feel for what''s happening by being a part of it; 1.3 Use your intuition to look for ''special points''; 1.4 The center of the earth is a special point; 1.5 Ask yourself "What am I ALREADY doing as I reach the special point?"; 1.6 Where you''re at - and what happens next?; 1.
7 Now put it all together; 1.8 Your Physics Toolbox;Chapter 2: Making it all MEAN Something: Units and measurements; 2.1 It''s the best music player ever, and you''re part of the team!; 2.2 So you get on with measuring the myPod case; 2.3 When the myPod case comes back from the factory.; 2.4 .it''s waaay too big!; 2.
5 There aren''t any UNITS on the blueprint; 2.6 You''ll use SI units in this book (and in your class); 2.7 You use conversion factors to change units; 2.8 You can write a conversion factor as a fraction; 2.9 Now you can use the conversion factor to update the blueprint; 2.10 You just converted the units for the entire blueprint!; 2.11 But there''s STILL a problem .; 2.
12 What to do with numbers that have waaaay too many digits to be usable; 2.13 How many digits of your measurements look significant?; 2.14 Generally, you should round your answers to three significant digits; 2.15 Is it OK to round the myPod blueprint to three significant digits?; 2.16 You ALREADY intuitively rounded your original myPod measurements!; 2.17 Any measurement you make has an error (or uncertainty) associated with it; 2.18 The error on your original measurements should propagate through to your converted blueprint; 2.19 Right! Time to attack the blueprint again!; 2.
20 STOP!! Before you hit send, do your answers SUCK?!; 2.21 You nailed it!; 2.22 When you write down a measurement, you need the right number of significant digits; 2.23 Your Physics Toolbox;Chapter 3: Scientific Notation, Area, and Volume: All numbers great and small; 3.1 A messy college dorm room; 3.2 So how long before things go really bad?; 3.3 Power notation helps you multiply by the same number over and over; 3.4 Your calculator displays big numbers using scientific notation; 3.
5 Scientific notation uses powers of 10 to write down long numbers; 3.6 Scientific notation helps you with small numbers as well; 3.7 You''ll often need to work with area or volume; 3.8 Look up facts in a book (or table of information); 3.9 Prefixes help with numbers outside your comfort zone; 3.10 Scientific notation helps you to do calculations with large and small numbers; 3.11 The guys have it all worked out; 3.12 200,000,000 meters cubed bugs after only 16 hours is totally the wrong size of answer!; 3.
13 Be careful converting units of area or volume; 3.14 So the bugs won''t take over . unless the guys sleep in!; 3.15 Question Clinic: The "Converting units of area or volume" Question; 3.16 Your Physics Toolbox;Chapter 4: Equations and Graphs: Learning the lingo; 4.1 The new version of the Break Neck Pizza website is nearly ready to go live .; 4.2 .
but you need to work out how to give the customer their delivery time; 4.3 If you write the delivery time as an equation, you can see what''s going on; 4.4 Use variables to keep your equation general; 4.5 You need to work out Alex''s cycling time; 4.6 When you design an experiment, think about what might go wrong!; 4.7 OK - time to recap where you''re at.; 4.8 Conduct an experiment to find out Alex''s speed; 4.
9 Write down your results. in a table; 4.10 Use the table of distances and times to work out Alex''s speed; 4.11 Random errors mean that results will be spread out; 4.12 A graph is the best way of taking an average of ALL your results; 4.13 Use a graph to show Alex''s time for ANY distance; 4.14 The line on the graph is your best estimate for how long Alex takes to cycle ANY distance; 4.15 You can see Alex''s speed from the steepness of the distance-time graph; 4.
16 Alex''s speed is the slope of the distance-time graph; 4.17 Now work out Alex''s average speed from your graph; 4.18 You need an equation for Alex''s time to give to the web guys; 4.19 Rearrange the equation to say "Δ time = something"; 4.20 Use your equation to work out the time it takes Alex to reach each house; 4.21 So you do a test run with the website .; 4.22 So just convert the units, and you''re all set.
right?; 4.23 Include the cooking time in your equation; 4.24 The Break Neck website goes live, and the customers love it!; 4.25 A few weeks later, you hear from Break Neck again; 4.26 A graph lets you see the difference the stop lights made; 4.27 The stop lights change Alex''s average speed; 4.28 Add on two minutes per stop light to give the customer a maximum delivery time .; 4.
29 .the customers are extremely happy .; 4.30 .and you''re invited to the Pizza Party; 4.31 Question Clinic: The "Did you do what they asked you" Question; 4.32 Your Physics Toolbox;Chapter 5: Dealing with Directions: Vectors; 5.1 The treasure hunt; 5.
2 Displacement is different from distance; 5.3 Distance is a scalar; displacement is a vector; 5.4 You can represent vectors using arrows; 5.5 You found the next clue.; 5.6 You can add vectors in any order; 5.7 Well done - you''ve found the third clue!; 5.8 Question Clinic: The "Wheat from the chaff" Question; 5.
9 Angles measure rotations; 5.10 Now you can get on with clue 3!; 5.11 If you can''t deal with something big, break it down into smaller parts; 5.12 You move onto the fourth clue.; 5.13 Velocity is the ''vector version'' of speed; 5.14 Write units using shorthand; 5.15 So, on to clue 4 .
; 5.16 You need to allow for the stream''s velocity too!; 5.17 If you can find the stream''s velocity, you can figure out the velocity for the boat; 5.18 It takes the boat time to accelerate from a standing start; 5.19 How do you deal with acceleration?; 5.20 So it''s back to the boat .; 5.21 Vector, Angle, Velocity, Acceleration = WINNER!!!; 5.
22 Your Physics Toolbox; 5.23 Question Clinic: The "Design an experiment" Question;Chapter 6: Displacement, Velocity, and Acceleration: What''s going on?; 6.1 Just another day in the desert .; 6.2 .and another Dingo-Emu moment!; 6.3 How can you use what you know?; 6.4 The cage accelerates as it falls; 6.
5 '' Vectorize'' your equation; 6.6 You want an instantaneous velocity, not an average velocity; 6.7 You already know how to calculate the slope of a straight line.; 6.8 A point on a curved line has the same slope as its tangent; 6.9 The slope of something''s velocity-time graph lets you work out its acceleration; 6.10 Work out the units of acceleration; 6.11 Success! You worked out the velocity after 2.
0 s - and the cage won''t break!; 6.12 Now onto solve for the displacement!; 6.13 Your Physics Toolbox;Chapter 7: Equations of motion (part 1): Playing With Equations; 7.1 How high should the crane be?; 7.2 Graphs and equations both represent the real world; 7.3 You''re interested in the start and end points; 7.4 You have an equation for the velocity - but what about the displacement?; 7.5 See the average velocity on your velocity-time graph; 7.
6 Test your equations by imagining them with different numbers; 7.7 Calculate the cage''s displacement!; 7.8 You know how high the crane should be!; 7.9 But now the Dingo needs something more general; 7.10 A substitution will help; 7.11 Get rid of the variables you don''t want by making substitutions; 7.12 Continue making substitutions .; 7.
13 You did it - you derived a useful equation for the cage''s displacement!; 7.14 Check your equation using Units; 7.15 Check your equation by trying out some extreme values; 7.16 Your equation checks out!; 7.17 Question Clinic: The "Substitution" Question; 7.18 Question Clinic: The "Units" or "Dimensional analysis" Question; 7.19 Think like a physicist!; 7.20 Your Physics Toolbox;Chapter 8: Equations of Motion (Part 2): Up, up, and.
back down; 8.1 Previously .; 8.2 Now ACME has an amazing new cage launcher; 8.3 The acceleration due to gravity is constant; 8.4 Velocity and acceleration are in opposite directions, so they have opposite signs; 8.5 You can use one graph to work out the shapes of the others; 8.6 Is a graph of your equation the same shape as the graph you sketched?; 8.
7 Ready to launch the cage!; 8.8 Fortunately, ACME has a rocket-powered hovercraft!; 8.9 You can work out a new equation by making a substitution for t; 8.10 Multiply out the parentheses in your equation; 8.11 You have two sets of parentheses multiplied together; 8.12 Where you''re at with your new equation; 8.13 You need to simplify your equation by grouping the terms; 8.14 You can use your new equation to work out the stopping distance; 8.
15 There are THREE key equations you can use when there''s constant acceleration; 8.16 You need to work out the launch velocity that gets the Dingo out of the Grand Canyon!; 8.17 The launch velocity''s right!; 8.18 You need to find another way of doing this problem; 8.19 Question Clinic: The "Sketch a graph" or "Match a graph" Question; 8.20 Question Clinic: The "Symmetry" and "Special points" Questions; 8.21 Your Physics Toolbox;Chapter 9: Triangles, Trig and Trajectories: Going two-dimensional; 9.1 Camelot - we have a problem!; 9.
2 How wide should you make the moat?; 9.3 Looks like a triangle, yeah?; 9.4 A scale drawing can solve problems; 9.5 Pythagoras'' Theorem lets you figure out the sides quickly; 9.6 Sketch + shape + equation = Problem solved!; 9.7 You kept them out!; 9.8 But the attackers get smarter!; 9.9 Camelot .
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