Wales Β· WJECSyllabus
Physics syllabus, dot point by dot point
Every dot point in the Wales 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.
Unit 2 Electricity and Light
Module overview β- What is electric current at the level of moving charge carriers?Current as the rate of flow of charge, the equation I = nAve linking current to charge-carrier density and drift velocity, and conductors, semiconductors and insulators.11 min answer β
- How do Kirchhoff's laws, internal resistance and potential dividers let us analyse a DC circuit?Kirchhoff's first and second laws, series and parallel resistors, EMF and internal resistance, and the potential divider.11 min answer β
- How does stimulated emission and a population inversion produce coherent laser light?Energy levels and photon emission, spontaneous and stimulated emission, population inversion and pumping, and the properties of laser light.11 min answer β
- What does the photoelectric effect tell us about the nature of light?The photon model and E = hf, the photoelectric effect, Einstein's photoelectric equation, the work function and threshold frequency.11 min answer β
- Why does light bend at a boundary, and when is it totally internally reflected?Refraction and refractive index, Snell's law, the critical angle, total internal reflection, and optical fibres.11 min answer β
- What is resistance, when does Ohm's law hold, and how does resistivity depend on the material?Resistance, Ohm's law, I-V characteristics of a metal, filament lamp and diode, resistivity, and the effect of temperature.11 min answer β
- What is a wave, and how do transverse and longitudinal waves differ?Transverse and longitudinal waves, amplitude, wavelength, frequency, period and phase, the wave equation, and polarisation.11 min answer β
- How do superposition, interference and diffraction let us measure wavelength?Superposition and coherence, two-source interference and path difference, diffraction, and the diffraction grating equation.11 min answer β
Unit 4 Fields and their Applications
Module overview β- How does a capacitor store charge and energy, and why are charge and discharge exponential?Capacitance and the charge stored, the energy stored in a capacitor, and exponential charge and discharge through a resistor with time constant RC.11 min answer β
- How does a changing magnetic flux induce an EMF, and what sets its size and direction?Magnetic flux and flux linkage, Faraday's law, Lenz's law, and applications in generators and transformers.11 min answer β
- How are electric and gravitational fields alike, and how do field strength and potential vary with distance?Coulomb's law and Newton's law of gravitation, electric and gravitational field strength and potential, and the inverse-square nature of both fields.11 min answer β
- What force does a magnetic field exert on a current and on a moving charge?Magnetic flux density, the force on a current-carrying conductor, the force on a moving charge, and Fleming's left-hand rule.11 min answer β
- How does gravity govern orbits, and what does the wider universe reveal about mass we cannot see?Circular orbits under gravity, Kepler's third law, satellites and escape, and evidence for dark matter from galactic rotation.11 min answer β
Unit 1 Motion, Energy and Matter
Module overview β- What is the basic toolkit of units, vectors and forces that the rest of physics is built on?SI units and prefixes, homogeneity of equations, scalars and vectors, resolving and adding vectors, density, and the equilibrium of coplanar forces including moments.11 min answer β
- How do forces change motion, and why is momentum conserved in a collision?Newton's three laws of motion, force as the rate of change of momentum, conservation of momentum, and elastic and inelastic collisions.11 min answer β
- How do work, energy, power and efficiency describe energy transfer?Work done by a force, kinetic and gravitational potential energy, conservation of energy, power, and efficiency.11 min answer β
- How do we describe motion using graphs and the equations of motion?Displacement, velocity and acceleration, interpreting motion graphs, the equations of motion for constant acceleration, and projectile motion.11 min answer β
- What are the fundamental building blocks of matter and the rules that govern their reactions?Quarks and leptons, antiparticles, baryons and mesons, conservation laws of charge, baryon and lepton number, and beta decay at the quark level.11 min answer β
- How do materials deform under load, and what does the Young modulus tell us?Hooke's law, stress, strain and the Young modulus, elastic and plastic behaviour, stress-strain graphs, and elastic strain energy.11 min answer β
- How can the light from a star tell us its temperature, size and luminosity?Black-body radiation, Wien's displacement law, Stefan's law, the inverse-square law of intensity, and stellar spectra.11 min answer β
Unit 3 Oscillations and Nuclei
Module overview β- Why is an object moving in a circle at constant speed accelerating, and what provides the force?Angular velocity, the link between speed and angular velocity, centripetal acceleration and centripetal force.11 min answer β
- How do the gas laws and kinetic theory connect the pressure of a gas to the motion of its molecules?The gas laws and the ideal gas equation, the kinetic theory derivation, and the link between molecular kinetic energy and temperature.11 min answer β
- How do we describe random radioactive decay with the decay law and half-life?Random and spontaneous decay, the decay law, activity, the decay constant and half-life, and the properties of alpha, beta and gamma radiation.11 min answer β
- Where does nuclear energy come from, and why do both fission and fusion release it?Mass-energy equivalence, the mass defect and binding energy, binding energy per nucleon, and nuclear fission and fusion.11 min answer β
- What is internal energy, and how do specific heat capacity and latent heat describe heating and changes of state?Internal energy and temperature, specific heat capacity, specific latent heat, and thermal equilibrium.11 min answer β
- What defines simple harmonic motion, and how do energy, damping and resonance behave?The defining equation of SHM, sinusoidal solutions, energy in SHM, the mass-spring and pendulum periods, damping and resonance.11 min answer β