PHYSICS: CONTENTS OF CLASS XI SYLLABUS
UNIT I: Physical World and Measurement
• Physics: Scope and excitement; nature of physical laws; Physics, technology, and society.
• Need for measurement: Units of measurement; systems of units; SI units, fundamental and derived
units. Length, mass, and time measurements; accuracy and precision of measuring instruments;
errors in measurement; significant figures.
• Dimensions of physical quantities, dimensional analysis, and its applications.
UNIT II: Kinematics
• A frame of reference, Motion in a straight line; Position-time graph, speed, and velocity. Uniform
and non-uniform motion, average speed, and instantaneous velocity. Uniformly accelerated
motion, velocity-time, and position-time graphs, for uniformly accelerated motion (graphical
treatment).
• Elementary concepts of differentiation and integration for describing motion. Scalar and vector
quantities: Position and displacement vectors, general vectors, general vectors and notation,
equality of vectors, multiplication of vectors by a real number; addition and subtraction of vectors.
Relative velocity.
• Unit vectors. Resolution of a vector in a plane-rectangular component.
• Scalar and Vector products of Vectors. Motion in a plane. Cases of uniform velocity and uniform
acceleration- projectile motion. Uniform circular motion.
UNIT III: Laws of Motion
• Intuitive concept of force. Inertia, Newton’s first law of motion; momentum and Newton’s second
law of motion; impulse; Newton’s third law of motion. Law of conservation of linear momentum
and its applications.
• Equilibrium of concurrent forces. Static and Kinetic friction, laws of friction, rolling friction,
lubrication.
• Dynamics of uniform circular motion. Centripetal force, examples of circular motion (vehicle on
level circular road, vehicle on banked road).
UNIT IV: Work, Energy, and Power
• Work done by a constant force and variable force; kinetic energy, work-energy theorem, power.
• Notion of potential energy, the potential energy of a spring, conservative forces; conservation of
mechanical energy (kinetic and potential energies); nonconservative forces; motion in a vertical
circle, elastic and inelastic collisions in one and two dimensions.
UNIT V: Motion of System of Particles and Rigid BodyCentre of mass of a two-particle system, momentum conservation, and centre of mass motion.
Centre of mass of a rigid body; centre of mass of uniform rod.
• Moment of a force,-torque, angular momentum, conservation of angular momentum with some
examples.
• Equilibrium of rigid bodies, rigid body rotation, and equation of rotational motion, comparison of
linear and rotational motions; the moment of inertia, the radius of gyration. Values of M.I. for
simple geometrical objects (no derivation). Statement of parallel and perpendicular axes theorems
and their applications.
UNIT VI: Gravitation
• Kepler’s laws of planetary motion. The universal law of gravitation. Acceleration due to gravity
and its variation with altitude and depth.
• Gravitational potential energy; gravitational potential. Escape velocity, orbital velocity of a
satellite. Geostationary satellites.
UNIT VII: Properties of Bulk Matter
• Elastic behavior, Stress-strain relationship. Hooke’s law, Young’s modulus, bulk modulus, shear,
modulus of rigidity, poisson’s ratio; elastic energy.
• Viscosity, Stokes’ law, terminal velocity, Reynold’s number, streamline and turbulent flow.
Critical velocity, Bernoulli’s theorem and its applications.
• Surface energy and surface tension, angle of contact, excess of pressure, application of surface
tension ideas to drops, bubbles and capillary rise.
• Heat, temperature, thermal expansion; thermal expansion of solids, liquids, and gases. Anomalous
expansion. Specific heat capacity: Cp, Cv- calorimetry; change of state – latent heat.
• Heat transfer- conduction and thermal conductivity, convection and radiation. Qualitative ideas of
Black Body Radiation, Wein’s displacement law, and Green House effect.
• Newton’s law of cooling and Stefan’s law.
UNIT VIII: Thermodynamics
• Thermal equilibrium and definition of temperature (zeroth law of Thermodynamics). Heat, work
and internal energy. First law of thermodynamics. Isothermal and adiabatic processes.
• Second law of the thermodynamics: Reversible and irreversible processes. Heat engines and
refrigerators.
UNIT IX: Behaviour of Perfect Gas and Kinetic Theory
• Equation of state of a perfect gas, work done on compressing a gas.
• Kinetic theory of gases: Assumptions, concept of pressure. Kinetic energy and temperature;
degrees of freedom, law of equipartition of energy (statement only) and application to specific
heat capacities of gases; concept of mean free path.
UNIT X: Oscillations and Waves
• Periodic motion-period, frequency, displacement as a function of time. Periodic functions. Simple
harmonic motion(SHM) and its equation; phase; oscillations of a spring-restoring force and force
constant; energy in SHM –Kinetic and potential energies; simple pendulum-derivation of
expression for its time period; free, forced and damped oscillations (qualitative ideas only),
resonance.
• Wave motion. Longitudinal and transverse waves, speed of wave motion. Displacement relation
for a progressive wave. Principle of superposition of waves, reflection of waves, standing waves
in strings and organ pipes, fundamental mode and harmonics. Beats. Doppler effect.
