8. Master Reference Table — Rapid Revision
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The following consolidated table lists every law covered in this chapter alongside its discoverer and a one-line statement, for quick last-minute revision before the examination.
Law | Scientist | One-Line Statement |
|---|---|---|
Newton's First Law of Motion | Isaac Newton | A body stays at rest or in uniform motion unless acted upon by an external force (inertia). |
Newton's Second Law of Motion | Isaac Newton | Force equals the rate of change of momentum (F = ma). |
Newton's Third Law of Motion | Isaac Newton | Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. |
Law of Universal Gravitation | Isaac Newton | Every mass attracts every other mass with force ∝ product of masses / square of distance. |
Kepler's First Law | Johannes Kepler | Planets move in elliptical orbits with the Sun at one focus. |
Kepler's Second Law | Johannes Kepler | A planet sweeps equal areas in equal times (law of areas). |
Kepler's Third Law | Johannes Kepler | T² is proportional to a³ (law of periods). |
Hooke's Law | Robert Hooke | Extension of a spring is proportional to the applied force, within elastic limit. |
Law of Conservation of Momentum | Newton (foundational) | Total momentum of an isolated system remains constant. |
Law of Conservation of Energy | Mayer, Joule, Helmholtz | Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only transformed. |
Archimedes' Principle | Archimedes | Buoyant force equals the weight of fluid displaced. |
Pascal's Law | Blaise Pascal | Pressure applied to a confined fluid is transmitted equally in all directions. |
Bernoulli's Principle | Daniel Bernoulli | As fluid speed increases, its pressure decreases. |
Stokes' Law | George Stokes | Viscous drag on a sphere is proportional to its radius, velocity, and fluid viscosity. |
Boyle's Law | Robert Boyle | At constant temperature, gas volume is inversely proportional to pressure. |
Charles's Law | Jacques Charles | At constant pressure, gas volume is directly proportional to absolute temperature. |
Gay-Lussac's Law | Joseph Gay-Lussac | At constant volume, gas pressure is directly proportional to absolute temperature. |
Ideal Gas Law | Clapeyron (combined) | PV = nRT. |
Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics | Ralph Fowler (named) | Bodies in thermal equilibrium with a third body are in equilibrium with each other. |
First Law of Thermodynamics | Mayer, Joule, Helmholtz | Energy conservation applied to heat and work (ΔQ = ΔU + ΔW). |
Second Law of Thermodynamics | Carnot, Clausius, Kelvin | Heat cannot flow spontaneously from cold to hot; entropy of an isolated system never decreases. |
Third Law of Thermodynamics | Walther Nernst | Entropy of a perfect crystal approaches zero as temperature approaches absolute zero. |
Wien's Displacement Law | Wilhelm Wien | Peak emission wavelength is inversely proportional to absolute temperature. |
Stefan-Boltzmann Law | Stefan and Boltzmann | Radiated energy is proportional to the fourth power of absolute temperature (E = σT⁴). |
Newton's Law of Cooling | Isaac Newton | Rate of cooling is proportional to the temperature difference with surroundings. |
Doppler Effect | Christian Doppler | Apparent frequency changes due to relative motion between source and observer. |
Laws of Reflection | Known since antiquity | Angle of incidence equals angle of reflection; incident ray, reflected ray, and normal are coplanar. |
Snell's Law of Refraction | Willebrord Snell | n1 sinθ1 = n2 sinθ2 across a boundary between two media. |
Laws of Photoelectric Effect | Hertz (observed), Einstein (explained) | Electron emission depends on light frequency (above threshold), not intensity. |
Ohm's Law | Georg Simon Ohm | V = IR; current is proportional to voltage at constant temperature. |
Coulomb's Law | Charles-Augustin de Coulomb | Electrostatic force ∝ product of charges / square of distance. |
Faraday's Laws of EM Induction | Michael Faraday | A changing magnetic flux induces an EMF in a conductor. |
Lenz's Law | Heinrich Lenz | Induced current opposes the change in flux that produced it. |
Ampere's Circuital Law | André-Marie Ampère | Line integral of magnetic field around a loop equals μ0 times enclosed current. |
Biot-Savart Law | Biot and Savart | Gives the magnetic field due to a small current-carrying element. |
Kirchhoff's Current Law | Gustav Kirchhoff | Total current into a junction equals total current out (charge conservation). |
Kirchhoff's Voltage Law | Gustav Kirchhoff | Sum of EMFs and voltage drops around a closed loop is zero (energy conservation). |
Joule's Law of Heating | James Prescott Joule | Heat produced is proportional to I²Rt. |
Fleming's Left-Hand Rule | John Ambrose Fleming | Gives the direction of force on a current-carrying conductor in a magnetic field (motors). |
Fleming's Right-Hand Rule | John Ambrose Fleming | Gives the direction of induced current in a moving conductor (generators). |
Planck's Law / Quantum Hypothesis | Max Planck | Energy is emitted/absorbed in discrete quanta, E = hν. |
Rutherford's Atomic Model | Ernest Rutherford | The atom has a small, dense, positively charged nucleus surrounded by electrons. |
Bohr's Atomic Model | Niels Bohr | Electrons occupy fixed orbits and jump between them by absorbing/emitting quantised energy. |
Pauli Exclusion Principle | Wolfgang Pauli | No two electrons in an atom can share the same set of four quantum numbers. |
Moseley's Law | Henry Moseley | √ν of characteristic X-rays is proportional to atomic number Z. |
Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle | Werner Heisenberg | Position and momentum of a particle cannot both be known with perfect precision simultaneously. |
Mass-Energy Equivalence | Albert Einstein | E = mc²; mass and energy are interconvertible. |
Theory of Relativity (Special/General) | Albert Einstein | Laws of physics are same for all inertial observers; gravity is the curvature of spacetime. |