PhysicsLAB AAPT Quiz
PhysicsBowl 2025 (Part 1)
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All Division I students, START HERE.
All Division II students – skip the first 10 questions, begin on #11.
*** Treat g = 10 m/s2 in ALL problems, #1-#50.
 
 
1. Your sister is 50 m ahead of you and walking at a speed of 1 m/s away from you. You run to catch up to her at a speed of 2.5 m/s. How much time does it take for you to catch her?
 
2. Two identical balls A and B are aimed at each other and roll off the edges of two identical horizontal tabletops at exactly the same time. Each ball has sufficient velocity to land under the opposite table, but ball B has a greater initial velocity than ball A. What will happen as they fall?
 




 
3. Which of the following mathematical expressions matches the velocity-time graph shown below?
 




 
4. NASA launched Apollo 8 on December 21, 1968. What was unique about this mission?




 
5. A simple pendulum is hanging from the ceiling of a train car. It is observed to hang at 10º to the right of vertical. Which of the following could describe this observation?




 
6. Which of the following two quantities have the same dimensions?
 
7. A researcher is measuring the average speed of a moving object over a known distance. The distance, d = 5.0 m, is measured with an uncertainty of ±0.1 m, and the time t = 1.00 s is measured with an uncertainty of ±0.02 s. All uncertainties are independent and random. What is the uncertainty in measured average speed?
 
8. A swimmer is swimming in a slowly moving stream. Which of the following is NOT true?




 
9. A shopping cart with a speed of v0 is brought to rest by an applied force. If the time interval over which the force is applied is increased, then bringing the cart to rest requires




 
10. An impulse of 10 N•s is acting on a 5 kg object. By how much will the object’s velocity change?
 
All Division I students continue questions #11 through 40.
All Division II students START HERE.
*** Treat g = 10 m/s2 in ALL problems, #1-#50.
 
11. A solid disk of mass 5 kg and radius of 0.4 m is released from rest and rolls without slipping down a 5 m long incline that makes a 30º angle from the horizontal. What will be the linear velocity of the disk’s center of mass at the bottom of the incline.
 
12. A simple pendulum consists of a small mass m attached to a massless string of length L. It is displaced to an angle θº from the vertical and released from rest. Assume no air resistance. At the lowest point of its swing, the pendulum bob collides elastically with another stationary bob of equal mass m, which is free to move after the collision. What is the maximum angle θf the original pendulum bob reaches after the collision?
 
13. A box of mass m is given an initial speed v and slides along a horizontal surface. The coefficient of kinetic friction between the box and the surface is μ. The box stops after sliding a distance d. The stopping distance, d, would be doubled if which of the following quantities were doubled?




 
14. Which of the following scientists is credited with first introducing the concept that energy is quantized, laying the foundation for quantum mechanics?
 
15. A fan cart with an initial velocity is located on a level track with an initial position as shown.
 
 
The cart’s fan is blowing air to the right. Which of the following position versus time graphs corresponds to the cart’s subsequent motion?
 
16. A 50-kg person stands on a bathroom scale inside of an elevator. The scale reads 400 N. Which of the following could describe how the elevator is moving?




 
17. The sun radiates approximately 4 × 1026 W of power. It has a surface temperature of 5800K. If the temperature were twice as high (11600 K), how much power would it radiate?
 
18. A particle with a mass of 10.0 g has an elastic, head-on collision with a second particle, also with a mass of 10.0 g, on frictionless, horizontal surface (such as an air hockey table). The collision has a coefficient of restitution, e = 1.0. Determine the percent loss of kinetic energy in the collision.
 
19. Which of the following Physics Nobel Laureates does not have degree in physics?
 
20. A bike and rider with a combined mass of 70 kg ride through a curve of radius of 20 m at a speed of 11 𝑚/𝑠 . The road is wet and the coefficient of static friction between the road and the tires is 0.50. Which of the following correctly explains whether the bike and rider will slip and why.




 
21. An object with a mass of 0.250 kg is moving through space with a linear velocity only and a kinetic energy of 1.000 J. Determine the magnitude of the momentum of this object as it is moving through space with a linear velocity.
 
22. What is the voltage, V, of the power supply shown in this circuit?
 
 
23. A ball is launched at 20º above the horizontal on a flat horizontal field. At what other launch angle (with respect to the horizontal) would the ball have the same horizontal range if fired at the same speed?
 
24. A mass on a spring executes simple harmonic motion with an amplitude of 10.0 cm and a period of 2.0 s. The average velocity of the mass over one complete oscillation is …
 
25. An ideal atomic gas is a hypothetical gas model where atoms are considered as non-interacting, point-like particles that move randomly and collide elastically. What is the adiabatic index of an ideal diatomic gas?
 



 
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