# Physics Predictions/Thoughts (1 Viewer)

#### Hscbuzman

##### Active Member
depends on the variables given, i think it'd be good if you could provide an example q.
I honestly think ur getting a b2

#### Hithcock

##### New Member
A bit late to the party but honestly feel the exam to mostly consist of calculations and explanation of concepts. Regurgitation of content will be required, for sure, but there will be a lot of calculations . I make this prediction based on the chemistry exam, of which there were a lot of calculations as well as the biology exam, which was more skills-based.

So some topics that has a large potential to come up:
- mass defect calculations (combines nuclear reaction stuff + Einstein's mass-energy equivalence etc etc.)
- Photoelectric effect (especially the graph- make sure to note down it's features such as the gradient being equal to Planck's constant, stuff like that).
- Motors and torque
- An application of circular motion such as cars on banked tracks or horizontal bends, mass on a string, so on and so forth.
- Satellites on circular motion

Obviously, there are more, but those are the things that come straight to my mind. Let us know of stuff I've missed!

#### ABBAS38

##### Member
I feel this exam will have more questions based off what new topics were added in the HSC New Syllabus

#### Balajanovski

##### Member
I honestly think ur getting a b2
Wherever I see you Hscbuzman you're generally being a condescending arse.
Just shut up and stop trying to hide your inability to explain and understand a concept clearly with vague remarks about the question's triviality.

#### Hscbuzman

##### Active Member
Wherever I see you Hscbuzman you're generally being a condescending arse.
Just shut up and stop trying to compensate for your lack of intelligence.
I will state rank

#### Balajanovski

##### Member
Ok. And Santa Claus is real too.

#### StudyOnly

##### Active Member
For all we know Hscbuzman you might be a genius who knows everything well on your way to a B6, but there is not reason to make others feel bad for asking a question or not knowing something. They are seeking help, from a forum which is designed to provide that help. There is no need to tell them they are getting a B2 for asking a question. I really hope you realise this!

#### Hscbuzman

##### Active Member
For all we know Hscbuzman you might be a genius who knows everything well on your way to a B6, but there is not reason to make others feel bad for asking a question or not knowing something. They are seeking help, from a forum which is designed to provide that help. There is no need to tell them they are getting a B2 for asking a question. I really hope you realise this!
They said i was wrong when i wasn't. I merely stated facts

#### Balajanovski

##### Member
Let’s end the flame war here. I shouldn’t have started it honestly but I was fed up of this guy’s attitude. The only person who was clearly explaining anything was @Arrowshaft and Buzman was making it seem like he was the smart one.

#### StudyOnly

##### Active Member
They said i was wrong when i wasn't. I merely stated facts
Telling someone they are getting B2 for asking for an example is a fact?
I don't want to argue, just be nicer in the way you answer people.

#### Balajanovski

##### Member
Recently I was doing the Independent trial paper for practise.
One of their questions was something along the lines of "Assess the contributions of Einstein in creating special relativity and the second postulate on the absolute nature of light's speed in a vacuum as well as in experimentally validating it".
Their sample answers I personally believe were probably going beyond the syllabus's intentions but I just want to make sure.
They discussed how Einstein was not the first to derive the length contraction are time dilation equations. It was instead Lorentz and Poincare.
It also discussed how the constancy of the speed of light was alluded to by Maxwell's equation for the speed of light $\bg_white c = \frac{1}{\sqrt{\mu_0 \epsilon_0}}$ not having any variables dependent on frame of reference.
And these points were in the marking criteria as requirements to get marks.

This is all stuff I already know, but I didn't write down because I was afraid of irrelevancy. However, they appear in the sample answers.
Is this irrelevant to the current syllabus? Should you mention this in an extended response?

Furthermore, weirdly, the sample answers said that special relativity's consequences did not need physical experimental validation. Instead Einstein's thought experiments were enough. However, I thought that Einstein's thought experiments have no inherent basis in reality, and were simply used to develop the predictions and consequences of special relativity.

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#### Arrowshaft

##### Active Member
Recently I was doing the Independent trial paper for practise.
One of their questions was something along the lines of "Assess the contributions of Einstein in creating special relativity and the second postulate on the absolute nature of light's speed in a vacuum".
Their sample answers I personally believe were probably going beyond the syllabus's intentions but I just want to make sure.
They discussed how Einstein was not the first to derive the length contraction are time dilation equations. It was instead Lorentz and Poincare.
It also discussed how the constancy of the speed of light was alluded to by Maxwell's equation for the speed of light $\bg_white c = \frac{1}{\sqrt{\mu_0 \epsilon_0}}$ not having any variables dependent on frame of reference.
And these points were in the marking criteria as requirements to get marks.

This is all stuff I already know, but I didn't write down because I was afraid of irrelevancy, however, they appear in the sample answers.
Is this irrelevant to the current syllabus? Should you mention this in an extended response?
I was wondering the exact same thing about this when I did the independent trial papers. No, I do not believe we need to know the works of Poincare and Lorentz, however everything else in the marking guidelines is accurate; the requirements of specifying the constancy of the speed of light as one of Einstein’s postulate, the work of Michelson and Morley and the other parts. I was also very frustrated because of the ambiguity, however, though I may be inclined to learn it anyway - I feel it is not necessary and quite frankly a useless ploy to obtain any marks in the HSC. The CSSA paper also had similar issues in regards to Pauli’s discovery of the neutrino and the graph of energies of beta and alpha particles. That was a heavy part of the old Q2Q option topic but I don’t think many students (even b6) would’ve gotten that if it were in the actual HSC (however they could pull a 2017 on us )

#### TheOnePheeph

##### Active Member
Recently I was doing the Independent trial paper for practise.
One of their questions was something along the lines of "Assess the contributions of Einstein in creating special relativity and the second postulate on the absolute nature of light's speed in a vacuum".
Their sample answers I personally believe were probably going beyond the syllabus's intentions but I just want to make sure.
They discussed how Einstein was not the first to derive the length contraction are time dilation equations. It was instead Lorentz and Poincare.
It also discussed how the constancy of the speed of light was alluded to by Maxwell's equation for the speed of light $\bg_white c = \frac{1}{\sqrt{\mu_0 \epsilon_0}}$ not having any variables dependent on frame of reference.
And these points were in the marking criteria as requirements to get marks.

This is all stuff I already know, but I didn't write down because I was afraid of irrelevancy. However, they appear in the sample answers.
Is this irrelevant to the current syllabus? Should you mention this in an extended response?
That question was so stupid, really ruined my confidence with long answer questions when I did it. I never remembered learning about Lorentz and Poincare deriving the length contraction and time dilation equations. As for the Maxwell stuff, I think its probably a good idea to mention the fact that he predicted the constancy of the speed of light using his equations, but I seriously doubt they actually want you to mention the variables as they did in the sample answer. The question itself was also pretty vague, it states in the sample answer that there is no direct experimental evidence for the constancy of the speed of light, which may be true, but when I saw it my first thought was to put experimental evidence for time dilation/length contraction, which it apparently didn't want at all lol.

#### Arrowshaft

##### Active Member
Furthermore, weirdly, the sample answers said that special relativity's consequences did not need physical experimental validation. Instead Einstein's thought experiments were enough. However, I thought that Einstein's thought experiments have no inherent basis in reality, and were simply used to develop the predictions and consequences of special relativity.
This, this is utter nonsense to me. The whole point of the validation of a theory is to seek experimental evidence - I do not understand how ‘thought experiments’ would suffice, I would’ve mentioned the work of Hafele-Keating and atomic clocks as well as muons and maybe cosmic rays (I wouldn’t go too in depth since it isn’t the focus of the question).

#### Balajanovski

##### Member
That question was so stupid, really ruined my confidence with long answer questions when I did it. I never remembered learning about Lorentz and Poincare deriving the length contraction and time dilation equations. As for the Maxwell stuff, I think its probably a good idea to mention the fact that he predicted the constancy of the speed of light using his equations, but I seriously doubt they actually want you to mention the variables as they did in the sample answer. The question itself was also pretty vague, it states in the sample answer that there is no direct experimental evidence for the constancy of the speed of light, which may be true, but when I saw it my first thought was to put experimental evidence for time dilation/length contraction, which it apparently didn't want at all lol.
Haha. That was the line of thought I went down as well. I briefly mentioned Maxwell, talked about Michelson and Morley. But then I talked about the experimental validation of the consequences of light's constant speed (time dilation, length contraction), such as the Hafele-Keating experiment and muon decay.

#### TheOnePheeph

##### Active Member
I was wondering the exact same thing about this when I did the independent trial papers. No, I do not believe we need to know the works of Poincare and Lorentz, however everything else in the marking guidelines is accurate; the requirements of specifying the constancy of the speed of light as one of Einstein’s postulate, the work of Michelson and Morley and the other parts. I was also very frustrated because of the ambiguity, however, though I may be inclined to learn it anyway - I feel it is not necessary and quite frankly a useless ploy to obtain any marks in the HSC. The CSSA paper also had similar issues in regards to Pauli’s discovery of the neutrino and the graph of energies of beta and alpha particles. That was a heavy part of the old Q2Q option topic but I don’t think many students (even b6) would’ve gotten that if it were in the actual HSC (however they could pull a 2017 on us )
That question in the CSSA was pretty bad as well, I mentioned it had something to do with neutrinos when I was answering it, but had never heard of Pauli in my life lol. It had a similar really stupid question that was a 5 marker where you literally just had to mention Einstein's postulate about the speed od light being constant, and then the wntire sample answer was waffle about "Galilean Relativity". The catholic papers are really terrible.

#### Arrowshaft

##### Active Member
Correct me if I’m wrong, did they also forget to mention the debunking or ‘erroneous’ existence of the luminiferous ether? Because I remember mentioning that but I don’t think I saw them mention it, unless I’m recalling incorrectly

#### Arrowshaft

##### Active Member
That question in the CSSA was pretty bad as well, I mentioned it had something to do with neutrinos when I was answering it, but had never heard of Pauli in my life lol. It had a similar really stupid question that was a 5 marker where you literally just had to mention Einstein's postulate about the speed od light being constant, and then the wntire sample answer was waffle about "Galilean Relativity". The catholic papers are really terrible.
I’m going to be flat out honest with you, if I was a student who hadn’t known about the work of Pauli, there was NO WAY my mind would jump to the conclusion that there had to be the existence of another particle emitted from beta decay, it’s just too much for a high school student. Also, previous syllabus Q2Q questions were even less rigorous AND they provided more detail