Crash Course Physics Season 1

In this, THE FIRST EPISODE of Crash Course Physics, your host Dr. Shini Somara introduces us to the ideas of motion in a straight line. She talks about displacement, acceleration, time, velocity, and the definition of acceleration. Also, how does a physicist discuss speed as opposed to a police officer? And did you deserve that ticket? You can figure it all out with the help of Physics!

CALCULUS! Today we take our first steps into the language of Physics; mathematics. Every branch of science has its own way to describe the things that it investigates. And, with Physics, that's math. In this episode, Shini talks us through derivatives and how calculus helps us to understand the world around us.

Continuing with last week's calculus introduction, Shini leads us through how integrals can help us figure out things like distance when we have several other essential bits of information. Say, for instance, you wanted to know how far your window was off the ground. You can figure that out by using integrals, a tennis ball, and a stopwatch! It's all here in this episode of Crash Course Physics!

Continuing in our journey of understanding motion, direction, and velocity... today, Shini introduces the ideas of vectors and scalars so we can better understand how to figure out motion in 2 dimensions. But what does that have to do with baseball? Or two baseballs?

I'm sure you've heard of Isaac Newton and maybe of some of his laws. Like, that thing about "equal and opposite reactions" and such. But what do his laws mean? And how do they help us understand the world around us? In this episode of Crash Course Physics, Shini talks to us about just that.

Why is it hard to move a heavy bookcase across a carpeted floor? And why is it easier to keep it moving than it was to get it started moving? You might think it's all about weight, but actually it's about friction. Two kinds of friction! In today's episode of Crash Course Physics, Shini Somara tells us about Static and Kinetic friction; how they work and how they're different.

Did you know that centrifugal force isn't really a thing? I mean, it's a thing, it's just not real. In fact, physicists call it a "fictitious force." Mind blown yet? To explore this idea further, this week Shini sits down with us to discuss centripetal force, centrifugal force, and a few other bits of physics to help us understand uniform circular motion.

I'm sure you've all heard about Isaac Newton and that apple that fell on his head and how that was a huge deal to our understanding of gravity. Well... let's talk about that. In this episode of Crash Course Physics, Shini sits down to talk about the realities of the apple story and how Newtonian Gravity is more than a little important.

When you hear the word "work," what is the first thing you think of? Maybe sitting at a desk? Maybe plowing a field? Maybe working out? Work is a word that has a little bit of a different meaning in physics and today, Shini is going to walk us through it. Also, energy and power!

COLLISIONS! A big part of physics is understanding collisions and how they're not all the same. Mass, momentum, and many other things dictate how collisions can be unique. In this episode of Crash Course Physics, Shini sits down to lead us through an understanding of collisions. Plus, she brings along our old friend Sir Isaac Newton.

Did you know that at a certain point on a moving wheel... there's no motion? I mean, kinda... it's all relative, right? Prepare to have your mind blown in this episode of Crash Course Physics where Shini delves into the world of rotational motion!

What is torque? This is one of those things that you may have heard about in passing but never really understood. In this episode of Crash Course Physics, Shini sits down with us to discuss what torque is, how it works, why it works, and what it all has to do with this thing called "moment of inertia."

The Physics we're talking about today has saved your life! Whenever you walk across a bridge or lean on a building, Statics are at work. Statics is the study of objects when they're NOT accelerating. In this episode of Crash Course Physics, Shini talks to us about stretching, compressing, and springing as they relate to statics! Also... Game of Thrones.

In this episode of Crash Course Physics, Shini is very excited to start talking about fluids. You see, she's a fluid dynamicist and mechanical engineer, so fluids are really important to her. Actually, they're really important to anyone studying physics. So, let's start down this path of understanding, not only how fluids work, but what they are!

Today, we continue our exploration of fluids and fluid dynamics. How do fluids act when they're in motion? How does pressure in different places change water flow? And what is one of the motion annoying things about filming outside on a nice day? I'll give you a hint on that last one... it's lawnmowers.

Bridges... bridges, bridges, bridges. We talk a lot about bridges in physics. Why? Because there is A LOT of practical physics that can be learned from the planning and construction of them. In this episode of Crash Course Physics, Shini talks to us about a particular mistake made in engineering the Millennium Bridge which allows us to talk about simple harmonic motion.

Waves are cool. The more we learn about waves, the more we learn about a lot of things in physics. Everything from earthquakes to music! Ropes can tell us a lot about how traveling waves work so, in this episode of Crash Course Physics, Shini uses ropes to talk about how waves carry energy and how different kinds of waves transmit energy differently.

We learn a lot about our surroundings thanks to sound. But... what is it exactly? Sound, that is. What is sound? And how does it travel? And what is this doppler effect that we've heard so much about? In this episode of Crash Course Physics, Shini goes over some of the basics (and some of the not-so-basics) of the Physics of Sound.

Music plays a big part in many of our lives. Whether you just like to listen or you enjoy playing an instrument, music is powerful. So what is music? How does it work? What are the physics of music? In this episode of Crash Course Physics, Shini talks to us about how music functions in terms of waves and how these waves interact with our ears.

Bridges. Bridges don't deal well with temperature changes. In order to combat this, engineers have come up with some workarounds that allow bridges to flex as they expand or contract. In this episode of Crash Course Physics, Shini talks to us about temperature and the ideal gas law. Also, we figure out how much air is in your car.

How the heck do we map out a planet without oceans? NASA had to figure that out when we sent the Mariner 9 probe to Mars. There's some tricky, yet fascinating science behind all of it! In this episode of Crash Course Physics, Shini talks to us about sea level, kinetic theory, and phase changes.

Have you ever wondered why we wear clothes? I mean, beyond the obvious. Why does wearing a jacket in the cold keep you warmer? What is happening to all the heat inside your body? In this episode of Crash Course Physics, Shini talks about the physics of heat!

Have you ever heard of a perpetual motion machine? More to the point, have you ever heard of why perpetual motion machines are impossible? One of the reasons is because of the first law of thermodynamics! In this episode of Crash Course Physics, Shini talks to us about thermodynamics and entropy. Also, we learn about isovolumetric, isobaric, isothermal, and adiabatic processes. It'll all make sense in a minute!

One of the greatest inventions is the steam engine. But why? What makes it so useful? And how does it work? In this episode of Crash Course Physics, Shini talks to us about how engines work, what makes them efficient, and why they're pretty cool.

Moving on to our unit on the Physics of Electricity, it's time to talk about charge. What is charge? Is there a positive and negative charge? What do those things mean? In this episode, Shini talks about electrostatic forces, electrical charge, Coulomb's law, and the force between charged particles.

As we learn more about electricity, we have to talk about fields. Electric fields may seem complicated, but they're really fascinating and a crucial part of physics. In this episode of Crash Course Physics, Shini chats about capacitors, conductors, electric field lines, and how objects with net charge generate electric fields.

So, how do those defibrillators you see on TV actually work? Surprise! Physics can explain! Okay, buckle up, everyone! Today, Shini has the task of breaking down electrical potential energy, electric potential, voltage, capacitors, energy storage, and potential energy... it's a lot!

So, electric current works like a river... kinda... Instead of flowing based on elevation, electric current works a little differently. But it's a good metaphor. In this episode of Crash Course Physics, Shini talks to us about electric current, voltaic cells, and how we get electric charge.

Batteries power much of your daily life, so today we're going to talk about how they work. We're also explaining how terminal voltage results from the natural internal resistance of every real battery. We'll get into both series and parallel circuit configurations, and how the laws of conservation affect the current and voltage for each.

How does Stranger Things fit in with physics and, more specifically, circuit analysis? I'm glad you asked! In this episode of Crash Course Physics, Shini walks us through the differences between series and parallel circuits and how that makes Christmas lights work the way they work.

By now you know your way around a basic DC circuit. You’ve learned how to simplify circuits with resistors connected in series and parallel with a single battery source. But a lot of the real-world circuits that you encounter — and will have to describe — are much more complicated. For example, what happens when there are MULTIPLE batteries, connected in ‘parallel’? And what happens when we add ‘capacitors’ into the mix, with resistors in our DC circuits? On this, our last go-round inside a DC circuit, we’ll encounter junctions, loops, and capacitors!

You’re probably familiar with the basics of magnets already: They have a north pole and a south pole. Two of the same pole will repel each other, while opposites attract. Only certain materials, especially those that contain iron, can be magnets. And there’s a magnetic field around Earth, which is why you can use a compass to figure out which way is north. In this episode of Crash Course Physics, Shini takes us into the world of magnetism!

Hans Christian Oersted had just discovered the connection between electricity and magnetism. Meanwhile, a French physicist named André-Marie Ampère was experimenting with some wires, trying to learn more about the connection between currents and the magnetic fields they create. Ampère would discover one of the most fundamental laws of electromagnetism: what we now call Ampère’s Law.

In this episode of Crash Course Physics, Megneto helps Shini explain what induction is, how it works, and why magnetism is so seemingly complicated.

In this episode of Crash Course Physics, Shini talks to us about how power gets to our homes. It's kind of amazing when you think about it and much more complicated than it may seem!

We've talked about AC Circuits, but now it's time to delve into the world of AC Circuits (or alternating currents). We’ve talked about how they change voltage, which helps transmit electricity over long distances, but there’s so much more to the physics of AC circuitry.

In the early 1800s, Michael Faraday showed us how a changing magnetic field induces an electromotive force, or emf, resulting in an electric current. He also found that electric fields sometimes act like magnetic fields, and developed equations to calculate the forces exerted by both. In the mid-1800s, Scottish physicist James Maxwell thought something interesting was going on there, too. So he decided to assemble a set of equations that held true for all electromagnetic interactions. In this episode of Crash Course Physics, Shini talks to us about Maxwell's Equations and how important they are to our understanding of Physics.

LIGHT! Let's talk about it today. Sunlight, moonlight, torchlight, and flashlight. They all come from different places, but they’re the very same thing: light! It’s what makes it possible for us to see the world around us, so it’s worth a close, hard look. For instance, how does light travel? When you flip that switch in the bathroom to brush your teeth, how does light move from the light bulb, to the mirror, and into your eyes?

The way light behaves can seem very counterintuitive, and many physicists would agree with that, but once you figure out light waves it all starts to make more sense! In this episode of Crash Course Physics, Shini shows us how we know that light exists as a wave and why that's really cool!

Light is everywhere … but it’s not as predictable as you might think. It’s a wave that travels in straight lines, yet it also reflects off of surfaces, refracts through various materials, and generally changes direction all the time! We’ve learned how to bend light to our will, with lenses and mirrors, but it’s time to take a step back and ask what we can LEARN from light.

How do lenses work? How do they form images? Well, in order to understand how optics work, we have to understand the physics of light. In this episode of Crash Course Physics, Shini talks to us about optical instruments and how they make magnification possible.

So we've all heard of relativity, right? But... what is relativity? And how does it relate to light? And motion? In this episode of Crash Course Physics, Shini talks to us about perspective, observation, and how relativity is REALLY weird!

What is light? That is something that has plagued scientists for centuries. It behaves like a wave... and a particle... what? Is it both? In this episode of Crash Course Physics, Shini introduces the idea of quantum mechanics and how it helps us understand light. Also, there's this thing called the ULTRAVIOLET CATASTROPHE!

e=mc2... it's a big deal, right? But why? And what about this grumpy cat in a box and probability? In this episode of Crash Course Physics, Shini attempts to explain a little more on the topic of quantum mechanics.

It's time for our second to final Physics episode. So, let's talk about Einstein and nuclear physics. What does E=MC2 actually mean? Why is it so useful to us as physicists and humans? In this episode of Crash Course Physics, Shini sits down to go over the basics of it all.

It's time for the end. At least the end of our first series on physics here at Crash Course. In this episode of Crash Course Physics, Shini sits down to talk about astrophysics and cosmology. By using what we've learned this year, we can better understand our universe. Join us for this final episode of Crash Course Physics as we head into the final frontier.