Latest updates

  • Revision tips

    What to expect

    Learn about the contents of the papers, reading time and what materials you can expect to use.

    16 April 2023
  • Mechanics

    Forces Free

    Every new movement, direction, squash or stretch requires a force.

    9 February 2023
  • Free Access Weekend! Free

    If you are a basic subscriber you will have free access to all the site pages on Saturday and Sunday, 4th and 5th February! Check out all the resources available to help you with your physics revision/self-study. If you are not a basic subscriber,...

    2 February 2023
  • Rectification Free

      Making a full wave rectifier can be difficult but it's simpler if you build it in two stages. Here LEDs are used to bring the circuit to life. First a line of 3 LEDs are connected in the same direction so they all come on when the current...

    1 January 2023
  • Friction is good Free

    There have been a lot of this sort of video on the Internet this week and they high light something that is often a source of misconception. you will have learnt that friction opposes motion so when you draw friction acting on a car it seems...

    31 December 2022
  • School lever Free

    With a long enough lever you can lift anything. Here I am trying to move millstone from the river by  my house. I have moved it 2m in 2 days means it will be in out garden some time next year. The mechanical advantage is about 20 since the...

    17 November 2022
  • IA 2022 Free

    Actually the title should be 2023 since that is when this lot will do their exam, however I always get the IA done early so my first year students have just handed in their 1st draft. I have given feedback and they have 1 week to finish it...

    17 November 2022
  • Best fit curves in GeoGebra Free

    Some of my students and I are having difficulty plotting curves in Loggerpro. There seems to be some bugs. Curve plotting is necessary in the IA when an equation can not be linearised, however it is important that the curve plotted is based...

    17 November 2022
  • Daily IA Free

    I really like this one. I common with most excellent investigation it's a simple idea but it turns out complex. On the face of it it's a too simple. What is the relationship between the resistance and length of a conductor. But this conductor...

    17 November 2022
  • Daily IA Free

    This is Aaro, he is from Finland so is naturally going to do his IA in the sauna, plotting isotherms for air at different temperatures. I'm not quite sure about the actual research question but something to do with gas at least.

    17 November 2022
  • Daily IA Free

    Clara is researching the amplitude of waves on a ripple tank. Actually she started measuring waves in the Fjord located (about 50 meters from my lab) but found it too impressice.The ripple tank is more calm but it's difficult to take measurements....

    17 November 2022
  • Daily IA Free

    Adrianna is doing her investigation on a hot air balloon made from bin liners. The research question is "what is the relationship between the uward force eperienced by a hot air balloon and its temperature". It is quite difficult to Measure...

    17 November 2022
  • Daily IA Free

    This is Dharsh, he is doing his IA on the hump-back bridge measuring the velocity at which a ball takes flight when rolling over a circular bridges of different radii. To be able to determine lift off he split the plastic pipe allowing the...

    17 November 2022
  • Jet on jets Free

    This is Jet Gunning. Guess what she is doing her individual investigation on.

    17 November 2022
  • Daily IA Free

    My 1st year students are doing their individual investigations at the moment so I thought I would share one each day. This is Ben, he is blowing down a tube attached to a pressure sensor. There is a little hole in the side of the tube letting...

    17 November 2022
  • 10 IA ideas with toilet paper Free

    Can I really think of 10 ideas based on a roll of toilet paper? probably not but I'll have a go. 1. Snatching a piece Have you ever noticed how, by pulling fast, you can snatch off a piece from a full roll but not an empty one? It's all to do...

    17 November 2022
  • Physics meme 2 Free

    Maybe the department store didn't help you to understand circuits?

    17 November 2022
  • Pool ball analysis Free

    One of my students is doing his IA on the relationship between the perpendicular distance between the direction of a pool ball and the centre of a ball that it hits and the angle between the original direction and the direction of the ball...

    17 November 2022
  • Why two lamps don't interfere Free

    Why don't two lamps  interfere with each other? The reason is that they are not coherent. Each lamp is made of a large number of atomic wave sources that have random phase, the wavefront produced from each lamp changes with time so any interference...

    17 November 2022
  • Newton´s pigs Free

    One of my student's sent me a question about the classic pig in an elevator problem. "Hi Chris, how can it be that the normal force is calculated these two different ways when the elevator is accelerating downwards and upwards?" v

    17 November 2022