Physics

The Supermassive Black Hole As you may have heard in the news recently, our galaxy contains a Supermassive Black Hole or, as astronmers like to call them, a SMBH. As a physics teacher, one of the most frequent questions I am asked about this discovery is: "are we all going to get sucked into it!?" The quick answer is, reassuringly, "No". The probing mind will them ask, "why not?" and it is this question that I will answer here. What is a Black Hole? First of all, it's worth explaining what one of these beasts actually is. I apologise to you as the reader if I am moving too slowly. If you get impatient with my ...  Read the complete review

I know this topic has been primarily used for the actual GCSE/A level courses, but I am writing this article on something different. A large, expensive physics experiment is about to go underway in Switzerland/France. What is the experiment? The experiment is taking place in a range of 50-175 metres underneath mainly France, but also stretches over Swizz border. The circumference of 'it' is about 17 miles long. This 'it' is the 'Large Hadron Collider'. This Machine costs 4.4 billion pounds to make, and is funded by nearly twenty different countries. At any one time (during operation), Seven thousand physicists will have access to the LCH. It ...  Read the complete review

YaY! Triple Physics! I bet you?ve never heard that before. I certainly haven?t, even at the end of my A-level. I?m currently in that final stretch between A-level mocks and the exams this summer, and I?m not liking it one bit. Let me take you from my physics humble beginnings - the dreaded GCSE: It?s January 2002 and I?ve just walked out of my Physics GSCE mock, and that was such a useless exam. Full of hard stuff and I left some questions unanswered because I had absolutely no idea. We hadn?t even been taught some of what was on that paper! Was that the right syllabus? Well my fears were confirmed in my mock result - a C. That?s a ?great? mark for ...  Read the complete review

I've been meaning to update this opinion (along with my other op's on A-level chemistry and biology). When I first wrote these 'guides' I thought they were really useful, I thought I’d written loads of useful information, I thought the spelling and grammar was excellent. How wrong was I?! Anyway, I’m back again updating this now, hopefully this will be more useful for any prospective AS/A-level physics students contemplating doing it next year. I’ll go over what you actual study in brief first and then compile an FAQ section at the end (I’ll list the questions that I’d have liked answering when I was choosing ...  Read the complete review

A lot of people write off physics straight away because it is generally conceived to be extremely hard.... well there is an element of truth in this. You will need to pay attention to all lessons, and make sure that you don't miss any. Depending on what course you do, what you need to know varies slightly, but generally it is all the same. Without a base knowledge from GCSE in the different subjects (Electronics, Nuclear Physics, Mechanics etc) physics will be much hard worker, and I suggest only people who got an A in their GCSE physics go for it. However there are obviously exceptions to this. Schools normally have a choice between coursework or a practical test ...  Read the complete review