Acknowldegements
Introduction
Syllabus
A Note about Significant Figures
I. Unit I - Entropy: Why Can You Remember Yesterday, but Not Tomorrow?
1. Why Probability Matters
2. Probability
3. Probability, Means, and Standard Deviations
4. The Meaning of "And" and "Or" in Probability
5. Statistical Distributions
6. Factorials
7. Combinations
8. Factorials and Combinations in a Spreadsheet
9. Introduction to Entropy
10. Why Entropy is Logarithmic
Unit I Homework
II. Unit II - Energy: What Actually IS It? How Do the Conceptions of Energy in Biology, Chemistry, and Physics Compare?
11. What is Energy?
12. Overview of the Types of Energy and Its Conservation
13. Basics of Matter
14. Energy Associated with Motion - Kinetic Energy
15. Energy Associated with Motion at the Molecular Scale - Temperature
16. From Temperature to Thermal Energy
17. Potential Energy
18. Do All Interactions Have a Potential Energy?
19. Conservation of Energy - Closed Systems
20. Open Systems and Transferring Energy
Unit II Homework
III. Unit III - Space and Time
21. Introduction to Motion
22. Dimensions: Space and Time
23. Displacement
24. Time, Velocity, and Speed
25. Acceleration
26. What you can learn from a graph
27. Graphical Analysis of One-Dimensional Motion
Unit III Homework
IV. Unit IV - What are forces and, thinking about one moment in time, what do they do? (Dynamics)
28. Starting to Think in Multiple Dimensions
29. Components of Vectors
30. Adding Vectors Analytically
31. Introduction to Vectors and Vector Addition and Subtraction: Graphical Methods
32. Development of Force Concept
33. Object Egoism
34. Newton’s Second Law of Motion: Concept of a System
35. How Many Different Kinds of Forces are There?
36. Weight and Gravity
37. Normal Force
38. Tension
39. Friction
40. Drag Forces
41. Viscous Force
42. Reynolds Number
43. Springs
Unit IV Homework
V. Final Project - Bringing It All Together
44. Dataset 1: How Physics Impacts Evolution - Barracuda vs. Brine Shrimp
45. Dataset 2: The forces involved in running
46. Dataset 3: How does your brain know you are eating a fatty food?
47. Dataset 4: Swimming Bacteria
VI. Appendices
Appendix A: Means/Averages and Other Measures of Center
Appendix B: Standard Deviation and Spread of Data
Appendix C: Overview of Microsoft Excel
Appendix D: Spreadsheet Formulas
Appendix E: Entering, Editing, and Managing Data
Appendix F: Converting Units
Appendix G: Algebra Review
Appendix H: Using the Language of Algebra
Appendix I: Identify Terms, Coefficients, and Like Terms
Appendix J: Evaluating Algebraic Expressions
Appendix K: Quadratic Formula
Appendix L: Triangles and the Pythagorean Theorem
Appendix M: The Angles Between Quantities
Appendix N: Trigonometry
Appendix O: How to Trigonometry in a Spreadsheet
Appendix P: Signs of Sine and Cosine
Appendix Q: The Periodic Table
Appendix R: Moles and Avogadro's Number
Appendix S: What You Can Learn from a Graph
Appendix T: Fundamental Relationships from Geometry
Appendix U: Systems of Equations
Appendix V: Making Graphs in Plotly Chart Studio
Appendix W: Absolute References
Appendix X: Properties of Logarithms
List of Spreadsheet Functions Used in This Class
Glossary
Brokk Toggerson
Homework
Physics 131: What Is Physics? by Brokk Toggerson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.