General Physics Video Lectures

Watch Wake Forest University Department of Physics professors present lectures on most concepts typically covered in a two semester general physics course.

For the development of these resources, the Physics Department gratefully acknowledges the support of the Wake Forest University Information Technology Group and the Information Systems  Department, including their STARs program.

Mathematical Methods

• Units of Measure – Jacque Fetrow 
• Dimensional Analysis – Jacque Fetrow 
• Significant Figures – Jacque Fetrow 
• Rectangular and Polar Coordinates – Jacque Fetrow 
• Examples of Conversion Between Rectangular and Polar Coordinates – Jacque Fetrow. (Requires Real Player)
• Scalars and Vectors – Jacque Fetrow 
• Vector Properties and Vector Algebra – Jacque Fetrow 
• Find vector magnitude and direction from components – Allen Brown 
• Example problem: Adding two vectors using components — Rick Matthews
• Vector Components and Unit Vectors – Jacque Fetrow 
• Products of Vectors – Keith Bonin 

Simple Motion

• One Dimensional Kinematics – Jed Macosko 
• Two Dimensional Kinematics – Jed Macosko 
• Constant acceleration equations — Rick Matthews
• Example problem: Ball fired in the air — Rick Matthews
• Projectile Motion
  • Projectile Motion – Jacque Fetrow 
  • Example problem: leaping cougar – Rick Matthews 
  • Demo: two ball drop – Rick Matthews 
  • Example problem: dart board projectile – Allen Brown 

Forces and Newton’s Laws

• Newton’s Laws
  • Lecture series by Dr. Rick Matthews
    • Newton’s First Law – Rick Matthews 
    • Definition of Mass, Definition of Force, and Newton’s Second Law – Rick Matthews 
    • Newton’s Third Law – Rick Matthews 
  • Lecture series by Drs. Macosko and Guthold
    • Newton’s First Law – Jed Macosko 
    • Newton’s Second Law – Martin Guthold 
    • Newton’s Third Law – Jed Macosko 
• Friction – Natalie Holzwarth 
• Free Body Diagrams
  • Free Body Diagrams – Martin Guthold 
  • Free Body Diagrams – Rick Matthews 
  • Free Body Example: a car going around a banked curve – Rick Matthews 
• Example problems using Newton’s Laws
  • Adding and subtracting forces – Allen Brown 
  • 15 trains – Allen Brown 
  • Simple Atwood Machine – Allen Brown 

Work and Conservation Laws

• Conservation of energy
  • Work and Conservation of Energy – Rick Matthews 
  • Examples of work and energy: work on an eraser – Rick Matthews 
  • Conservation of Energy, Part 2 – Martin Guthold 
• Conservation of Momentum
  • Conservation of Momentum – Martin Guthold 
  • Conservation of Momentum Examples – Martin Guthold (Requires Real Player)

Rotational Motion

• Uniform Circular Motion
  • Uniform Circular Motion — Rick Matthews 
  • Uniform Circular Motion – William Kerr 
• Rotation about a fixed axis
  • Rotation of a Rigid Object About a Fixed Axis: Part A, Definitions – Jacque Fetrow 
  • Rotation of a Rigid Object About a Fixed Axis: Part B, Equations of Motion – Jacque Fetrow 
  • Rotation of a Rigid Object About a Fixed Axis: Part C, Moment of Inertia – Jacque Fetrow 
• Torque – Jacque Fetrow 
• Rolling Motion – Jacque Fetrow 
• Angular Momentum – Jacque Fetrow 

Elastic properties

• Elastic properties of solids – Rick Matthews

Planetary Motion

• Kepler’s Laws of Planetary Motion – Forrest Charnock (Requires Real Player)
• Newton’s Universal Law – Forrest Charnock (Requires Real Player)
• Gravitational Potential Energy – Forrest Charnock ((Requires Real Player)

Oscillatory Motion and Waves

• Simple Harmonic Motion
  • Simple Harmonic Motion 1 – Fred Salsbury 
  • Simple Harmonic Motion 2 – Fred Salsbury 
  • Simple Harmonic Motion 3 – Fred Salsbury 
  • Simple Harmonic Motion 4 – Fred Salsbury 
• Waves
  • Wave Motion: Introduction and Some Terminology – Jacque Fetrow 
  • The Wave Function – Jacque Fetrow 
  • Sinusoidal Waves – Jacque Fetrow 

Fluids

• Physics of Static Fluids – Natalie Holzwarth 
• Fluids in Motion – Rick Matthews 
• Dynamics of Fluids – Rick Matthews 

Thermodynamics

• Temperature and the Ideal Gas Law – Jed Macosko (Requires Real Player)
• Heat and the First Law of Thermodynamics – Jed Macosko (Requires Real Player)
• The Second Law of Thermodynamics – Jed Macosko (Requires Real Player)
• Pressure and Kinetic Energy – Jed Macosko (Requires Real Player)
• Thermodynamics Examples – Jed Macosko (Requires Real Player)
• Thermodynamics – a brief overview – Part 1 – Rick Matthews 
• Thermodynamics – a brief overview – Part 2 – Rick Matthews 

Electrostatics

• Electric Fields
  • Electric Fields 2 . Electric field from multiple point charges. Rick Matthews.
  • Electric Fields 3 . Electric field from continuous charge distributions. Rick Matthews.
• Millikan Oil Drop Experiment – Keith Bonin
• Gauss’s Law
  • Lecture video:GaussLaw.mp4 . Matthews.
  • Gauss’ Law: Exploiting Symmetry (Gausshelp.mp4).  Matthews.
• Electric Potential
  • Electric Potential: Part 1 – Keith Bonin 
  • Electric Potential: Part 2 – Keith Bonin 
  • Electric Potential: Part 3 – Keith Bonin 
• Capacitance
  • Capacitance: Part 1 – Burak Ucer 
  • Capacitance: Part 2 – Burak Ucer 
  • Dielectrics – Burak Ucer 

Currents, Resistance, DC circuits, RC circuits

• Current and Resistance – Rick Matthews 
• DC Circuits – Burak Ucer 
• RC Circuits – William Kerr 

Magnetic fields

• Magnetic force on current-carrying wires – Rick Matthews 
• The Biot-Savart Law – Rick Matthews 
• Ampere’s Law – Rick Matthews 
• Faraday’s Law – Rick Matthews 
• Self-Inductance and the RL Circuit – Kerr 

AC Circuits

• AC Circuits 1 – Rick Matthews
• AC Circuits 2: Series LRC and Phasors – Rick Matthews

Electromagnetic Waves

• Maxwell’s Equations – Natalie Holzwarth
• Electromagnetic Plane Waves – Natalie Holzwarth

Optics

• Lenses1.mp4. Convex lenses and image formation. Rick Matthews.
• Lenses2.mp4. More on convex lenses, real and virtual images, brief mention of how the eye focuses and how a camera focuses. Rick Matthews.
• Lenses3.mp4. Concave lenses and their images. Rick Matthews.
• More ray tracing lessons
  • Lesson 1, convex lens with an object far from the lens. Rick Matthews.
  • Lesson 2, convex lens with an object near the lens. Rick Matthews.
  • Lesson 3, concave lens. (Note that object placement has little effect on the nature of the image with concave lenses.) Rick Matthews.

Electronics

• Operational Amplifiers – Rick Matthews 
• JFET’s – Rick Matthews 
• MOSFET’s – Rick Matthews 
• CMOS Logic – Rick Matthews 
• Noise – Rick Matthews 
• Lock-in Amplifiers – Rick Matthews