England Β· Pearson EdexcelSyllabus
Physics syllabus, dot point by dot point
Every dot point in the England Physicssyllabus, with a focused answer for each one. Click any dot point for a worked explainer, past exam questions, and links to related dot points. Written by Claude Opus 4.8, Anthropic's latest AI.
Electric circuits
Module overview β- How do components combine and why does a battery's voltage drop?Series and parallel resistor combinations, Kirchhoff's two laws, EMF and internal resistance, and the relationship with terminal potential difference.11 min answer β
- What is electric current and how is energy transferred in a circuit?Current as the rate of flow of charge, the equation , potential difference and EMF as energy per unit charge, and electrical power and energy.9 min answer β
- How can we tap off a chosen fraction of a supply voltage?The potential divider equation, the use of dividers to provide a variable potential difference, and sensor circuits using thermistors and LDRs.10 min answer β
- What determines the resistance of a component?Ohm's law, I-V characteristics of ohmic and non-ohmic components, resistivity , and the variation of resistance with temperature for metals and semiconductors.11 min answer β
Fields and their consequences
Module overview β- How do capacitors store charge and energy?Capacitance as charge per unit potential difference, the energy stored on a capacitor, and the exponential charge and discharge of a capacitor through a resistor with the time constant.11 min answer β
- How do charges exert forces and store energy in a field?Coulomb's law, electric field strength for radial and uniform fields, electric potential, and the motion of charged particles in a uniform field.11 min answer β
- How does gravity act as a field around a mass?Newton's law of gravitation, gravitational field strength for radial and uniform fields, gravitational potential, and orbital motion of satellites and planets.11 min answer β
- How do magnetic fields exert forces and generate EMFs?Magnetic flux density and the force on a current-carrying conductor, the force on a moving charge, magnetic flux and flux linkage, and Faraday's and Lenz's laws of electromagnetic induction.12 min answer β
Mechanics and materials
Module overview β- How do forces determine how objects move?Scalars and vectors, resolving and combining forces, free-body diagrams, Newton's three laws of motion, weight, friction and the conditions for equilibrium and moments.11 min answer β
- How do solids deform and how do objects move through fluids?Hooke's law and the spring constant, stress, strain and the Young modulus, elastic strain energy, density and upthrust, and viscous drag with Stokes' law and terminal velocity.12 min answer β
- What is conserved when objects collide?Linear momentum as the product of mass and velocity, conservation of momentum in collisions and explosions, impulse as the change in momentum, and elastic versus inelastic collisions.11 min answer β
- How do we describe and predict the motion of an object?Displacement, velocity and acceleration; motion graphs; the equations of uniformly accelerated motion (suvat); projectile motion as independent horizontal and vertical components.11 min answer β
- How is energy transferred when forces do work?Work done by a force, kinetic and gravitational potential energy, the principle of conservation of energy, power as the rate of doing work, and efficiency.10 min answer β
Nuclear and particle physics
Module overview β- Where does nuclear energy come from?Mass-energy equivalence , mass defect and binding energy, the binding energy per nucleon curve, and energy release in nuclear fission and fusion.12 min answer β
- What are the fundamental particles and how do we probe them?Quarks and leptons, hadrons (baryons and mesons), particles and antiparticles, the use of accelerators to create particles, and conservation laws in particle interactions.12 min answer β
- How do unstable nuclei decay and how fast?Alpha, beta and gamma radiation and their properties, the random nature of decay, the decay constant and activity, the exponential decay law, and half-life.11 min answer β
- How do we know the atom has a tiny dense nucleus?The alpha-particle scattering experiment, the nuclear model of the atom, the proton and neutron, nuclide notation, and estimating nuclear radius and density.11 min answer β
Thermodynamics, space and oscillations
Module overview β- How do we measure stars and the expanding universe?Stellar luminosity and Wien's law and Stefan's law, the use of standard candles and parallax for distance, the redshift of galaxies, and Hubble's law and the expanding universe.12 min answer β
- What keeps an object moving in a circle?Angular velocity and the relationship between linear and angular speed, centripetal acceleration, and centripetal force in horizontal and vertical circular motion.10 min answer β
- What defines simple harmonic motion and how does it lose or gain energy?The defining condition for simple harmonic motion, displacement, velocity and acceleration in SHM, energy interchange in an oscillator, and free, damped and forced oscillations with resonance.12 min answer β
- How is heat transferred and how do ideal gases behave?Internal energy and temperature, specific heat capacity and specific latent heat, the ideal gas laws and equation of state, and the kinetic theory of gases.12 min answer β
Waves and the particle nature of light
Module overview β- How do waves bend, spread and reflect at boundaries?Refraction and Snell's law, refractive index, total internal reflection and the critical angle, diffraction at a single slit, and the diffraction grating equation.12 min answer β
- What happens when two waves meet?The principle of superposition, constructive and destructive interference, coherence and path difference, and the formation of stationary waves with nodes and antinodes on strings and in pipes.12 min answer β
- What does the photoelectric effect tell us about light?The photon model and , the photoelectric effect and the photoelectric equation, threshold frequency and work function, and the electronvolt and atomic energy levels.12 min answer β
- How do we describe a wave and what does it transfer?Transverse and longitudinal waves, amplitude, wavelength, frequency, period and speed, the wave equation, phase and phase difference, and polarisation of transverse waves.11 min answer β
- Can particles behave like waves?Wave-particle duality, electron diffraction as evidence for the wave nature of matter, the de Broglie wavelength, and the complementary wave and particle models of light.11 min answer β