Objectives
Topic 7: Atomic, Nuclear and Particle Physics (16 hours)
7.1 Discrete energy and radioactivity (energy levels, transition between levels, radioactive decay, alpha, beta and gamma, half-life, decay constant, background radiation)
7.2 Nuclear reactions (unified mass unit, mass defect, binding energy, fission and fusion)
7.3 The structure of matter (quarks, leptons, anti-particles, hadrons, baryons, mesons, conservation laws of charge, baryon number, lepton number, strangeness, nature and range of strong and weak forces, exchange particles, Feynman diagrams, colour and confinement, the Higgs boson)
12.2 Nuclear physics (Rutherford scattering and nuclear radius, nuclear energy levels, the neutrino, law of radioactive decay and decay constant)
Activities and Assignments
Read Chapters 30, 31 (sections 1-4)
View MechUniverse: Ep49 The Atom, A history of the atom, from the ancient Greeks to the early 20th century, and a new challenge for the world of physics- see worksheet in the notes folder.
Phet Investigation of Beta Decay (see instructions in the notes folder)
Resources:
Class Notes folder: lecture notes, worksheet, labs, and unit review study guide.
MIT Courseware: Einstein, Oppenheimer, Feynman: Physics in the 20th Century
IB Physics Course Guide: Topic 7
Types of Decay (Kahn Academy)
Michio Kaku: The Universe in a Nutshell
