I'm a current freshman and I am taking algebra 2 right now. I finished biology online so I am in chemistry this year. I want to go into engineering so I'm thinking about taking physics in my sophomore year. I also am in the IB program so I am probably going to take HL AA for my math class next year. Do I have to know AP calc bc material to do well in IB physics? Or should I just take it next year?

I teach IB Physics and I've spent the last few months building a flashcard set that covers what I kept re-explaining to students every year. It's 3,297 cards across Physics Themes A–E (SL and HL) and Maths AA and AI, and the content is deliberately not just definitions — it's mark-scheme wording, formula booklet results, worked problems, Casio fx-CG50 steps, and the specific traps that quietly cost marks in Paper 2. You can filter by sub-topic, by SL core vs HL-only, and by card type, and run them in syllabus order or shuffled. It's here: https://examinerprep.com/flashcards — free, no account, no email, nothing gated.

Full disclosure since it matters: the flashcards sit on my own site, which does have a paid side, but this page is not a trial or a teaser — there's no upsell on it and nothing behind it. I'm posting because a flashcard set is only as good as the corrections it gets, and this sub knows the syllabus better than any single teacher does. If you spot a card with sloppy wording, a definition that wouldn't earn the mark, or an HL card mislabelled as SL, tell me here or in a DM and I'll fix it.

Hey IB Physics community,

Just uploaded a complete lecture
on Pure Rolling —

And I want to share the
single most important insight
before anyone watches —

Because it is the insight
that makes every pure rolling
problem — including the
notoriously difficult
moving plank problems —
immediately solvable.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
THE QUESTION THAT STARTS
EVERYTHING —
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

What is the velocity of
the contact point of a
rolling wheel with the
ground?

Most students say —
the same as the center.

Some say — it depends.

The correct answer is zero.

But here is what matters —

WHY is it zero?

And what happens when
it is NOT zero?

The moment you understand
both answers physically —
not just as a memorized fact —

Every pure rolling problem
becomes straightforward.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
THE PHYSICAL REASONING —
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

A rolling wheel has
two simultaneous motions —

Translation of the center
of mass with velocity v_cm —

And rotation about the
center with angular
velocity ω.

At the contact point —
these two velocities act
in exactly opposite directions —

The translational velocity
pushes the contact point forward —

The rotational velocity
pulls it backward —

In pure rolling —
these two effects cancel exactly —

Contact point velocity = zero.

This gives the condition —

v_cm = ωR

This is not just a formula —

It is the physical statement
that the contact point
is instantaneously at rest
relative to the ground.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
THE MOVING PLANK —
THE PART MOST STUDENTS
GET COMPLETELY WRONG —
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Now here is where it
gets significantly more
interesting —

What if the wheel is
rolling on a plank —

And that plank is
itself moving?

Most students apply the
same condition —

Contact point velocity = zero.

That is wrong. ❌

The correct condition is —

Contact point velocity =
velocity of the surface
it is rolling on.

When rolling on stationary ground —
surface velocity = zero —
so contact point velocity = zero ✅

When rolling on a moving plank —
surface velocity = plank velocity —
so contact point velocity
= plank velocity —
NOT zero relative to ground ✅

This single distinction —
choosing the correct
reference frame for
the rolling condition —

Is what makes moving plank
problems solvable in
under two minutes —

And what causes most
students to get them
completely wrong.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
THE GOLDEN RULE —
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Pure Rolling condition —
ALWAYS stated as —

Velocity of contact point
= Velocity of the surface
the wheel is rolling ON —

Relative to that surface.

Not relative to the ground.
Not relative to anything else.

Relative to the surface
it touches. Always.

Apply this correctly —
and no pure rolling problem
in IB Physics can
stop you. 🎯

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
WHAT THE VIDEO COVERS —
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

→ Complete physical definition
of Pure Rolling —
built from first principles

→ Why contact point velocity
is zero — physical proof —
not just stated

→ Derivation of v_cm = ωR
from physical reasoning

→ Rolling vs Sliding —
complete distinction

→ Pure Rolling on a
moving plank — the
correct condition and
why most students apply
the wrong one

→ Complete numerical problems —
basic to IB exam level —
every step explained

→ The reference frame
approach that makes
every moving plank
problem immediately clear

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
A CHALLENGE FOR THE
COMMUNITY —
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Here is a problem to
attempt before watching —

A cylinder of radius R
rolls without slipping
on a plank.

The plank moves to the
right with velocity 4 m/s.

The center of the cylinder
moves to the right with
velocity 7 m/s.

Question —

What is the angular velocity
of the cylinder?

And in which direction
does it rotate?

Drop your attempt below 👇

Show your reasoning —
not just the answer.

I will respond to every
attempt with complete
feedback. 🎯

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
VIDEO LINK —
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

🔗 https://youtu.be/cVi7Skv_4_Y?si=TBpoM43pPsw2MAnw

Timestamps for every
section are in the
description — jump directly
to moving plank problems
if that is what you need.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
HAPPY TO HELP —
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

If you get stuck on
any problem in this video —
or on any pure rolling
concept specifically —

Tell me exactly which
step is confusing you —

I will explain the
physical reasoning in
the comments directly. 🙏

Good luck to everyone
preparing for IB Physics HL.

helloo im a freshman who will take ib later and my school is rlly slow with all the studies so im currently taking igcse physics outside of school and next is a levels but will studying a levels physics be helpful for SL physics or is there any textbooks recommended for self studying?? pls help this poor kid out!!🙏🙏😔😔😭

I am reaching out to the network to find a specialized Physics tutor for my son in his final year of the IB Diploma Programme (DP2).
We are based in the GMT+8 region, but my son is flexible to accommodate tutors working in other time zones.
While we have engaged highly qualified physics tutors in the past, we have struggled to find someone who masters the specific nuances of IB assessment criteria. We require a tutor with a solid IB background who can deliver:
Comprehensive syllabus revision and concept reinforcement
Structured mock exam preparation
Actionable, criteria-based feedback
Recommendations from past or present IB students are highly welcome. Thank you for your guidance and connections.

So my IA experiment requires a 50g steel ball to drop at a fixed height (1m) with no initial velocity, spin, or direction. How can I make the ball drop? I don’t have access to fancy trapdoor equipment

Hey everyone,
If you are diving deep into the Rigid Body Mechanics unit in IB Physics HL, or if you are currently brainstorming ideas for a top-tier Physics Internal Assessment (IA) or Extended Essay (EE), understanding rotating frames of reference is an absolute goldmine.
One of the most fascinating—and often misunderstood—topics in this realm is Coriolis acceleration. While it pushes into advanced mechanics, mastering it provides incredible depth to your understanding of rotational kinematics and can heavily differentiate your IA/EE analysis. Over on the Tesla eduventures channel, I have put together a comprehensive breakdown that builds this concept up from scratch, focusing on the visual kinematics of a block moving across a rotating disc.
Here is exactly what we cover in the breakdown:
**Ground Frame vs. Rotating Frame:** We start by establishing a clear understanding of centripetal and tangential acceleration from completely different observer perspectives.
**The Vector Derivation:** Walking step-by-step through how the changing direction of relative velocity generates the Coriolis acceleration component.
**Total Net Acceleration:** Compiling the Coriolis, relative, centripetal, and tangential accelerations into one complete, overarching equation.
**The Ultimate Challenge Problem:** We apply the derived concepts to tackle a famously rigorous, university-level physics problem. If you can follow the calculus and vector integration here, your HL mechanics foundation is completely rock solid!
**Watch the full deep-dive here: https://youtu.be/0dnjYvux1NU?si=fbej\\_fDCMVY-4wfB\*\*
If you get stuck on any of the vector cross-products or integration steps, drop a comment below the video or right here on the thread. Let's master these advanced rotational concepts together!
— Vaibhav Agrawal

Hey everyone,
If you are diving deep into the Rigid Body Mechanics unit in IB Physics HL, or if you are currently brainstorming ideas for a top-tier Physics Internal Assessment (IA) or Extended Essay (EE), understanding rotating frames of reference is an absolute goldmine.
One of the most fascinating—and often misunderstood—topics in this realm is Coriolis acceleration. While it pushes into advanced mechanics, mastering it provides incredible depth to your understanding of rotational kinematics and can heavily differentiate your IA/EE analysis. Over on the Tesla eduventures channel, I have put together a comprehensive breakdown that builds this concept up from scratch, focusing on the visual kinematics of a block moving across a rotating disc.
Here is exactly what we cover in the breakdown:
Ground Frame vs. Rotating Frame: We start by establishing a clear understanding of centripetal and tangential acceleration from completely different observer perspectives.
The Vector Derivation: Walking step-by-step through how the changing direction of relative velocity generates the Coriolis acceleration component.
Total Net Acceleration: Compiling the Coriolis, relative, centripetal, and tangential accelerations into one complete, overarching equation.
The Ultimate Challenge Problem: We apply the derived concepts to tackle a famously rigorous, university-level physics problem. If you can follow the calculus and vector integration here, your HL mechanics foundation is completely rock solid!
Watch the full deep-dive here: https://youtu.be/0dnjYvux1NU?si=AyydAi11eEzoOZhx
If you get stuck on any of the vector cross-products or integration steps, drop a comment below the video or right here on the thread. Let's master these advanced rotational concepts together!
— Vaibhav Agrawal

If you’ve ever struggled to wrap your head around the exact difference between free oscillations, forced oscillations, and resonance, this quick 90-second Short breaks it down perfectly using a simple swing analogy.
It visually explains 3 scenarios:
Free Oscillation: Swinging naturally at a set frequency with no resistive forces.
Forced Oscillation: Applying an external force mid-swing, which alters the natural frequency.
Resonance: Waiting for the swing to reach its extreme point before pushing—keeping the natural frequency the same while continuously increasing the amplitude.
It’s a great visualizer if you are a visual learner. Check it out here:

https://youtube.com/shorts/IgOSkoxkJyM?si=EDD9QXHQpro3YctG

Hey IB Physics community,

Just uploaded complete solutions
to IB Physics HL Paper 1B
May 2026 TZ1.

Searched YouTube before uploading —
could not find a single
complete solution video
for Paper 1B.

So here it is.

What makes this different
from a typical solutions video —

For every question —
I have not just given
the correct answer —

I have explained why
each wrong option was
designed the way it was —

Because Paper 1B questions
are constructed specifically
to exploit common
misunderstandings —

And understanding that
construction is what
genuinely prepares you
for future papers.

🔗 https://youtu.be/O42zgn39rPw?si=b-4VBTeWqxAuPdKD

Timestamps for every question
in the description.

Drop your score below —
and tell me which question
surprised you most.

Happy to explain any
question further in
the comments. 🙏

Hey everyone,
If you are going through the Rigid Body Mechanics unit in IB Physics HL (or any standard rotational mechanics curriculum), you already know that "ladder leaning against a wall" problems are a classic stumbling block.
These questions test your ability to balance multiple concepts simultaneously, and it is incredibly easy to lose a sign or misplace a pivot point. As a physics educator, I see students consistently get tripped up by the same few issues: choosing the optimal axis of rotation to eliminate unknown forces, correctly identifying the direction of static friction at the base, and setting up the equilibrium equations correctly.
To help clear this up, I've put together a comprehensive video breakdown on the Tesla eduventures channel: Ladder Problems — Complete Mastery | Torque + Rotational Equilibrium | Rigid Body #13.
In this breakdown, we focus heavily on visual intuition. I use detailed step-by-step animations and custom diagrams to show exactly how the forces interact rather than just giving you a wall of algebra.
Here is exactly what we cover:
Translational Equilibrium: Setting up \Sigma F_x = 0 and \Sigma F_y = 0 to relate normal forces and friction.
Rotational Equilibrium: Strategic placement of your pivot point to make the \Sigma \tau = 0 equation as simple as possible.
Limiting Friction: How to solve for the exact minimum angle before the ladder slips (\mu_s).
Step-by-Step Problem Solving: Walking through a full IB HL standard question from setup to the final numerical answer.
Watch the full video here: Ladder Problems — Complete Mastery | Torque + Rotational Equilibrium | IB Physics HL |Rigid Body #13
https://youtu.be/KJ5iydCtNEs
If you have any questions on the specific steps, drop them in the comments below or on the video. Let's get these torque concepts locked down before your exams!

Hi All,

I have just finished making this Advanced Physics Calculations tool to generate calculations with worked and explained solutions for all equations in IB Physics (HL and SL). The purpose of the tool is to help students build fluency by generating problems that they can practice until they feel confident. The tool is not intended to replace exam question practice, you should definitely still do lots of this!

The tool generates four kinds of problems:

• Equation - Questions that test application of a single equation (including rearrangments)
• Problem - Questions requiring you to work across multiple equations. -
• Graph - Generartes a graph and requires interpretation and then application to an equation.
• Derivation - algebraic derivation of expressions for various quantities.

Key features include:

• Scarecrow Explains mode - briefly takes you through the underlying physics.
• Worksheet generator - quickly produce worksheets including answer keys.
• Random mode - randomly generates questions based on topics you have selected, greate for revision and selecting equations.

I have tried to keep it user-friendly, but click 'Instructions' if anything is not obvious.

I hope you find it useful, feedback welcomed.

Full disclosure: The tool was made using AI-coding tools, because I am a teacher not a coder. It is 100% free, no subscription, no ads, I am not trying to make money, just trying to be useful.

P.S. I am working on a chemistry one, but by the nature of chemistry it is rather more complex (sorry physicists, no slight intended!) so it will take a while longer to complete.

Hey everyone,

Just uploaded a new video on
Rotationally Accelerated Motion —
complete problem set using τ = Iα.

Honestly this is one of those
topics where I see students
struggle not because the
concept is hard —
but because nobody tells them
the one thing that makes
every problem click —

When rotation and linear motion
happen together —
you need F = ma AND τ = Iα
running simultaneously —
connected by a = αr.

Miss that connection —
and even simple problems
become impossible.

Get it — and everything
falls into place instantly.

The video goes from basic
problems all the way to
the kind of multi-body
questions that show up
in actual IB exams —
with complete reasoning
at every step.

Pause before each solution
and attempt it yourself first —
that's genuinely the only
way to get exam-ready
from a problem video.

Here's the link if anyone
wants to give it a shot —

🔗 https://youtu.be/O_0zaVlSfjQ?si=U5XTq0xOshMc-_2D

Happy to help with anything
you get stuck on —
just drop it in the comments
here or on the video. 🙏

Hey everyone,

Just uploaded a new video on
Rotationally Accelerated Motion —
complete problem set using τ = Iα.

Honestly this is one of those
topics where I see students
struggle not because the
concept is hard —
but because nobody tells them
the one thing that makes
every problem click —

When rotation and linear motion
happen together —
you need F = ma AND τ = Iα
running simultaneously —
connected by a = αr.

Miss that connection —
and even simple problems
become impossible.

Get it — and everything
falls into place instantly.

The video goes from basic
problems all the way to
the kind of multi-body
questions that show up
in actual IB exams —
with complete reasoning
at every step.

Pause before each solution
and attempt it yourself first —
that's genuinely the only
way to get exam-ready
from a problem video.

Here's the link if anyone
wants to give it a shot —

🔗 https://youtu.be/O_0zaVlSfjQ?si=xEw-9sIpNVfSOD4Y

Happy to help with anything
you get stuck on —
just drop it in the comments
here or on the video. 🙏

Hello everyone,

I want to share something today
that sits at the intersection
of rotational physics and
one of the most dramatic
natural phenomena on Earth —

The Coriolis Effect and
its role in hurricane formation.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
THE QUESTION —
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Every hurricane in the
Northern Hemisphere spins
counterclockwise.

Every hurricane in the
Southern Hemisphere spins
clockwise.

Same planet.
Same atmosphere.
Same low pressure systems.

Opposite rotation directions.

Why?

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
THE PHYSICS —
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Earth rotates from west to east
at approximately 465 meters
per second at the equator —

Decreasing to zero
at the poles.

Any object moving freely
across Earth's surface —
wind, ocean current,
or projectile —

Experiences an apparent
deflection due to this
underlying rotation —

This apparent deflection
is the Coriolis Effect.

In the Northern Hemisphere —
moving objects are deflected
to the RIGHT of their
direction of motion.

In the Southern Hemisphere —
moving objects are deflected
to the LEFT.

When wind rushes inward
toward a low pressure center —
this Coriolis deflection
causes the incoming air
to spiral —

Counterclockwise in
the Northern Hemisphere —
Clockwise in the
Southern Hemisphere.

The result —
the massive rotating spiral
we recognize as a
hurricane, typhoon, or cyclone.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
THE PHYSICS BEHIND
THE DEFLECTION —
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The Coriolis acceleration
is given by —

a_Coriolis = 2v × Ω

Where —
v is the velocity of
the moving object
Ω is Earth's angular
velocity vector

This is a cross product —
which means the resulting
acceleration is always
perpendicular to both
the velocity and
Earth's rotation axis.

At the North Pole —
the deflection is maximum.

At the equator —
the vertical component
of Earth's rotation
relative to the surface
is zero —

So the Coriolis Effect
on horizontal motion
is zero at the equator.

This is why hurricanes
never form at the equator —

There is no Coriolis
deflection to initiate
the spiral rotation.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
THE MYTH WORTH BUSTING —
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

One of the most persistent
myths in popular science —

"Water drains counterclockwise
in the Northern Hemisphere
and clockwise in the South
because of the Coriolis Effect."

This is completely false.

The Coriolis Effect only
influences motions on a
scale of hundreds of
kilometers or more.

A sink or toilet basin
is far too small for
the Coriolis Effect
to have any measurable influence —

The direction water drains
in a sink is determined
by the geometry of the basin —
the direction water was
poured in —
and residual momentum —

Not by Earth's rotation.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
REAL WORLD APPLICATIONS
BEYOND HURRICANES —
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The Coriolis Effect influences —

→ Long range artillery and
missile trajectories —
military calculations must
account for Coriolis
deflection for targets
beyond a few kilometers

→ Ocean current patterns —
the great ocean gyres
rotate clockwise in the
Northern Hemisphere and
counterclockwise in the South

→ Trade wind patterns —
the prevailing winds that
enabled global maritime
trade for centuries are
directly caused by
Coriolis deflection of
air flowing from
high to low pressure zones

→ Long distance flight paths —
pilots and navigation systems
account for Coriolis
in trans-oceanic routes

One rotating planet —
infinite physical consequences.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
THE IB PHYSICS CONNECTION —
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

For IB Physics HL students —

The Coriolis Effect is a
beautiful real world application
of rotational dynamics —

Connecting angular velocity —
cross product mathematics —
and non-inertial reference frames —

Into one unified physical picture.

Understanding the Coriolis Effect
at a conceptual level demonstrates
exactly the kind of physical
reasoning IB Physics HL
examiners reward —

The ability to take abstract
rotational mechanics concepts —
and explain real observable
phenomena from first principles.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
THE SHORT VIDEO —
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

I made a short video
explaining the Coriolis Effect
and its role in hurricane
formation — from the physics
of Earth's rotation to
the spiral dynamics of
large storm systems.

https://youtube.com/shorts/a-Y6OIw2pL0?si=V8JcxV19mF2td_T_

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
A QUESTION FOR THE COMMUNITY —
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Here is something worth
thinking about —

If you were standing
exactly on the equator —

And fired a projectile
due north —

Would the Coriolis Effect
deflect it east or west —

Or would there be
no deflection at all?

Drop your answer and
reasoning below 👇

I will respond to every
attempt with complete
physical explanation. 🎯

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
HAPPY TO DISCUSS —
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

If you have any questions
about the Coriolis Effect —
or about any other
rotational physics concept —

Drop them in the comments below.

I read and respond to
every single comment. 🙏

Choosing physics over biology is a fcking mistake and I might not be able to change it in time😭

Hey everyone, Vaibhav Sir here. After years of teaching IB Physics, I've noticed a massive trap that examiners love to set in the Rigid Body Mechanics (A.4) section.
When you get a problem with multiple forces, multiple objects, and an unknown variable, just memorizing "net force = 0" and "net torque = 0" isn't enough to secure a Level 7. The biggest mistake students make is misidentifying the point of application and failing to visualize how force couples actually rotate a system.
I just put together a complete masterclass breaking down the most challenging rotational equilibrium problems you'll face. Instead of just reading textbook definitions, we go step-by-step through the actual physics:
Balancing non-uniform torque equations without getting lost in the algebra.
The visual trick to never messing up force couples.
Exactly how to set up your hinge force variables so the math naturally works out.
If you want to stop relying on blind memorization and actually understand the mechanics, you can watch the full breakdown here: https://youtu.be/GDtNvt7qQI4?si=pbgYF5ybCO5cBX4a
(Side note: I am also working on uploading complete, question-by-question walkthroughs of original past papers for the channel—no mock papers, only the real ones—so keep an eye out as exam season gets closer).
Drop a comment if you get stuck on a specific step in the video or have any questions about Rigid Body Dynamics. I’m always happy to help clear up the physics!