Physics HL

Revision Summary

Atomic, Nuclear, and Particle Physics

Where does it appear? How much does it count?

(Calculations for the tables below were made based on past exams from May 2016 until May 2022)

 

Approximate number of marks

Approximate percentage of your final IBDP Physics grade

Paper 1

3-4 marks 

(out of 40)

1.7 %

Paper 2

7-9 marks

(out of 90)

3.2 %

Overall percentage of your IB Physics grade based on Topic 7

4.9 %

What to study?

Sub-topic 7.1 – Discrete energy and radioactivity

  • Energy levels and transitions + emission and absorption spectra
  • Radioactive decay and half-life (decay curves), isotopes, background radiation
  • Alpha, beta and gamma decay + characteristics of these decay particles
  • Decay equation for alpha and beta decay

 

Sub-topic 7.2 – Nuclear reactions

  • Mass defect and binding energy
  • Energy released in nuclear decay, fission and fusion
  • Average binding energy per nucleon against nucleon number graph
  • Proton number against neutron number graph

 

Sub-topic 7.3 – The structure of matter

  • The basics of particle physics: quarks, leptons, hadrons, baryons, mesons, antiparticles
  • Conservation laws: charge, baryon number, lepton number, strangeness
  • The four fundamental forces and their characteristics + exchange particles
  • Feynman diagrams 

Topic Specific PaperPlainz Resources

Video Concept Explanations

Atomic, Nuclear, and Particle Physics

Discrete Energy and Radioactivity
Nuclear Reactions
The Structure of Matter
HL Questionbank

Atomic, Nuclear, and Particle Physics

HL Past Exam Video Solutions by Topic

Atomic, Nuclear, and Particle Physics

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