Isaac Senior Physics Challenge 2024

it’s been announced! I got in

They're not hard, I just see the forces approach being way easier with the classical mechanics problems

yippee! good work!

Did you? I knkw your school was really competitive

Okay! Does anyone know what to expect from it?

I agree completely. Doing a little bit day by day. The question that has confused me most so far is part B of 1.14. I integrated it easily, but I don’t see why it goes to n! Can anyone help?

Okay! Does anyone know what to expect from it?

Which part? I got the algebraic integral to be -e^-x x^n + - e^-x x^(n-1) ... which evaluates to 0 at infinity and -n! at 0 (since all the exponentials evaluate to 1), so the final result of the integral with the bounds is n!

I think we also get to go the Cavendish labs to do a bit of practical work!

It’s that last part. I got the integral but I don’t see how it’s n!

Been working through the primer they sent us and I just can't seem to find the right approach to exercise 1.6, so I have just carried on through the chapter. Could anyone explain how to tackle it???

Basically because the energy of the particle is less than 4V0 it can’t overcome the potential barrier at x=0 and x=1.5a so it’s just going to keep travelling back and forth between those two points and it just wants the time for it to go from 0 to 1.5a and back to 0

Does anyone know how to do exercises 1.27 and 1.28? I've been working through the primer and I can't seem to get past these two questions!!

Let k_c be the lowest k value with a solution.
Let x be that solution.




For 1.28,
Plot both on paper, youll find that as long as the coefficient 1/2 a is positive, there is one negative x solution.
For the second solution, again, do the same approach
Let a_min be the value with the tangent leading to 1 positive x solution.
Let x be that solution.


(hope i didnt give too much away)

GG EVERYONE! Here are some stats for anyone curious for future years: (My Final Question Count)
A level:
320 C1
456 C2
134 C3
Further A:
84 C1
88 C2
44 C3
University:
95 C1
25 C2
14 C3
Total - 1260 Questions
(Note that this includes quite a bit of overlap, as well as all of the Master Maths Challenge Questions, some hidden questions, and the outdated versions of a lot of questions)
Also, there are apparently two more Gameboards (at least!) which I apparently did not find before the deadline, containing around 13 A-Level C1 questions, so this isn't even the theoretically maximum possible number of Physics and Maths Challenge Questions with difficulty A-Level or above which you can do on the website!
I'd also like to acknowledge how crazy it is that 5 people in my school finished every question this year! (With the exception of 5.13 in the Quantum Mechanics Primer Book, which is bugged as of right now, but should be fixed soon according to Isaac Physics)
Good luck to everyone on getting places at the summer school!

do you know if the outdated questions count?