AP PHYSICS 2
ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS
1. Can the student solve electricity problems? Ohm’s Law - voltage, current, resistance, and equivalent resistance for a combination series and parallel circuit.
ESSENTIAL LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Be able to make predictions, using the conservation of electric charge, about the sign and relative quantity of net charge of objects or systems after various charging processes, including conservation of charge in simple circuits.
2. Predict the direction and the magnitude of the force exerted on an object with an electric charge q placed in an electric field E using the mathematical model of the relation between an electric force and an electric field: F = qE.
3. Make and justify a quantitative and qualitative prediction the effect of a change in values or arrangements of one or two circuit elements on the currents and potential differences in a circuit containing a small number of sources of emf, resistors, capacitors, and switches in series and/or parallel.
4. Use conservation of energy principles (Kirchhoff’s loop rule) to describe and make predictions regarding electrical potential difference, charge, and current in steady-state circuits composed of various combinations of resistors and capacitors.
5. Distinguish the characteristics that differ between monopole fields (gravitational field of spherical mass and electrical field due to single point charge) and dipole fields (electric dipole field and magnetic field) and make claims about the spatial behavior of the fields using qualitative arguments based on vector addition of fields due to each point source.
6. Be able to use right-hand rules to analyze a situation involving a current-carrying conductor and a moving electrically charged object to determine the direction of the magnetic force exerted on the charged object due to the magnetic field created by the current-carrying conductor.
7. Explain the function of a simple electromagnetic device in which an induced emf is produced by a changing magnetic flux through an area defined by a current loop (i.e., a simple microphone or generator) or of the effect on behavior of a device in which an induced emf is produced by a constant magnetic field through a changing area.
8. Describe the models that represent processes by which energy can be transferred between a system and its environment because of differences in temperature: conduction, convection, and radiation.
9. Treating a gas molecule as an object (i.e., ignoring its internal structure), be able to analyze qualitatively the collisions with a container wall and determine the cause of pressure, and at thermal equilibrium, to quantitatively calculate the pressure, force, or area for a thermodynamic problem given two of the variables.
10. Use Bernoulli’s equation and/or the relationship between force and pressure to make calculations related to a moving fluid and construct an explanation of Bernoulli’s equation in terms of the conservation of energy.
11. Identify patterns that indicate that a particular mechanical wave is polarized and construct an explanation of the fact that the wave must have a vibration perpendicular to the direction of energy propagation.
12. Make claims about the diffraction pattern produced when a wave passes through a small opening, and to qualitatively apply the wave model to quantities that describe the generation of a diffraction pattern when a wave passes through an opening whose dimensions are comparable to the wavelength of the wave.
13. Describe models of light traveling across a boundary from one transparent material to another when the speed of propagation changes, causing a change in the path of the light ray at the boundary of the two media and find the relationship between the angle of incidence and the angle of refraction for light crossing boundaries from one transparent material to another (Snell’s law).
14. Explain why classical mechanics cannot describe all properties of objects by articulating the reasons that classical mechanics must be refined and an alternative explanation developed when classical particles display wave properties.
15. Identify that there are different types of fundamental forces, the electroweak force, the gravitational force, and the strong (nuclear) force, and these forces can be characterized by their actions at different scales.
2. Predict the direction and the magnitude of the force exerted on an object with an electric charge q placed in an electric field E using the mathematical model of the relation between an electric force and an electric field: F = qE.
3. Make and justify a quantitative and qualitative prediction the effect of a change in values or arrangements of one or two circuit elements on the currents and potential differences in a circuit containing a small number of sources of emf, resistors, capacitors, and switches in series and/or parallel.
4. Use conservation of energy principles (Kirchhoff’s loop rule) to describe and make predictions regarding electrical potential difference, charge, and current in steady-state circuits composed of various combinations of resistors and capacitors.
5. Distinguish the characteristics that differ between monopole fields (gravitational field of spherical mass and electrical field due to single point charge) and dipole fields (electric dipole field and magnetic field) and make claims about the spatial behavior of the fields using qualitative arguments based on vector addition of fields due to each point source.
6. Be able to use right-hand rules to analyze a situation involving a current-carrying conductor and a moving electrically charged object to determine the direction of the magnetic force exerted on the charged object due to the magnetic field created by the current-carrying conductor.
7. Explain the function of a simple electromagnetic device in which an induced emf is produced by a changing magnetic flux through an area defined by a current loop (i.e., a simple microphone or generator) or of the effect on behavior of a device in which an induced emf is produced by a constant magnetic field through a changing area.
8. Describe the models that represent processes by which energy can be transferred between a system and its environment because of differences in temperature: conduction, convection, and radiation.
9. Treating a gas molecule as an object (i.e., ignoring its internal structure), be able to analyze qualitatively the collisions with a container wall and determine the cause of pressure, and at thermal equilibrium, to quantitatively calculate the pressure, force, or area for a thermodynamic problem given two of the variables.
10. Use Bernoulli’s equation and/or the relationship between force and pressure to make calculations related to a moving fluid and construct an explanation of Bernoulli’s equation in terms of the conservation of energy.
11. Identify patterns that indicate that a particular mechanical wave is polarized and construct an explanation of the fact that the wave must have a vibration perpendicular to the direction of energy propagation.
12. Make claims about the diffraction pattern produced when a wave passes through a small opening, and to qualitatively apply the wave model to quantities that describe the generation of a diffraction pattern when a wave passes through an opening whose dimensions are comparable to the wavelength of the wave.
13. Describe models of light traveling across a boundary from one transparent material to another when the speed of propagation changes, causing a change in the path of the light ray at the boundary of the two media and find the relationship between the angle of incidence and the angle of refraction for light crossing boundaries from one transparent material to another (Snell’s law).
14. Explain why classical mechanics cannot describe all properties of objects by articulating the reasons that classical mechanics must be refined and an alternative explanation developed when classical particles display wave properties.
15. Identify that there are different types of fundamental forces, the electroweak force, the gravitational force, and the strong (nuclear) force, and these forces can be characterized by their actions at different scales.