meriSTEM Senior Physics
The buttons below will take you to an alignment of the meriSTEM physics courses to your state syllabus. meriSTEM courses are always being improved, but the physics modules so far cover all content in the Australian Curriculum senior units 1, 2, 3 and 4, plus additional topics.
Teachers please join the meriSTEM Teacher Community to access detailed planning and lesson resources.
Example video and question: Quantum mechanics 2.2 Combining light and thermodynamics
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- When you heat something enough (and it doesn’t burn) it glows red. When you heat it even more, it goes white. When it gets hotter still, it goes blue.
Why do things go white hot rather than going through the colours of the rainbow?
a) Lots of frequencies are emitted at same time, making white.
b) They do go through the rainbow. Rainbows are what you see when you split up white light from the sun.
c) Something has to be at a very precise temperature to make a single colour, and temperature varies too much.
d) They do go through the rainbow, but our eyes are less sensitive to colours like green. - Which of the following is not a problem with the Rayleigh-Jeans law for thermal radiation?
a) It disagrees with experimental observation, particularly at high frequencies.
b) It predicts that higher frequencies of thermal light have ever growing intensity.
c) It predicts that at thermal equilibrium, light must have infinite energy density.
d) It does not follow the laws of electromagnetism, but light is an electromagnetic wave. - What might be the solution to the ultraviolet catastrophe?