Deep Physics: Electricity & Magnetism for Talented Middle Schoolers, Princeton
Real electricity and magnetism, taught from charge and current through circuits, magnetic fields, and the working principle of the electric motor. For talented middle schoolers.
A World Through the Lens of Electricity and Magnetism
Almost everything around you that plugs in, lights up, or beeps is running on two old ideas: electric charge and magnetism. They look like two separate stories at first. Then, sometime in the 1800s, people realized they were really one.
Rub a balloon on your hair, then hold it near a thin stream of water from the tap. The water bends toward the balloon. The balloon does not touch the water. Something is reaching across the gap.
Connect a bulb to one AA battery. It glows. Connect it to two AA batteries stacked in a line. It glows much brighter. Connect it to two AA batteries side by side. It glows about the same as one. What is each battery actually doing?
A compass needle points north on its own. Run an electric current through a nearby wire. The needle swings to a new direction. There was no magnet near it, only a wire with current. So where did the magnetism come from?
Two bar magnets attract each other. Flip one end-to-end, and they push each other apart. The same two magnets, the same metal, no batteries involved. Why does the direction matter so much?
A small set of ideas, electric charge, current, voltage, resistance, and magnetic field, explains every one of these. The same ideas explain lightning, your kitchen toaster, the motor in a fan, and the magnet on your fridge.
This camp teaches you what physicists actually know about it. From the beginning.
You will:
- Predict the current through any simple circuit, given its voltage and resistance.
- Explain why bulbs in a series circuit dim if you add more bulbs, and what happens if you put them in parallel instead.
- Trace the magnetic field around a wire, a loop, and a permanent magnet, and see why all three are the same kind of object.
- Explain the working principle of an electric motor: a current in a magnetic field feels a push.
By the end, you will think about charge, current, and magnetic fields the way a physicist thinks about them.
What You Will Actually Understand
By the end, you will understand six core ideas of electricity and magnetism.
1. Electric Charge, Conductors, and Insulators
The starting point of the whole subject. Two kinds of charge, positive and negative, and the rule that like charges push apart while unlike charges pull together. Conductors that let charge move freely, like metals, and insulators that hold it in place, like rubber. Static electricity as charge that has not yet found a path to flow.
2. Current, Voltage, and Resistance
The three quantities that describe any circuit. Current as the flow of charge through a wire. Voltage as the push that drives the flow. Resistance as how hard the wire makes the current work. Ohm’s law: the simple rule that ties the three together.
3. Series and Parallel Circuits
How resistors share the work when you wire them together. Series: one path, so the same current goes through everything and voltages add up. Parallel: multiple paths, so voltage is shared and currents add up. Predicting brightness, current, and voltage anywhere in a circuit on paper, before you build it.
4. Electric Power and Joule Heating
Where the energy in a battery actually goes. Electric power as voltage times current. Joule heating: why a wire warms up when current passes through it, and why this is what makes a toaster toast and a light bulb light. The energy used by a household appliance, computed on paper.
5. Magnetism and the Magnetic Field
The second half of the subject, until you see they are one.Permanent magnets and their two poles. The magnetic field as the shape of the influence around a magnet, traced with iron filings or a compass. Earth’s magnetic field and why a compass works. The discovery that an electric current is itself a source of magnetic field.
6. Electromagnets and the Electric Motor
How a current in a magnetic field can do work. Electromagnets: build a magnet that turns on and off with a switch. The force on a current-carrying wire when it sits in a magnetic field. Put a loop of wire in a magnetic field, run current through it, and the loop turns. You have built an electric motor.
The specific topics, and the depth given to each, may shift depending on the dynamics of the cohort. The destination, a working understanding of electricity, magnetism, and the link between them, stays the same.
Schedule, Pricing & Enrollment
Formats: Fall and Spring semester course (paired with Optics), or Summer single-topic camp.
Schedule, format, tuition, refund policy, and transcripts apply to every Lyceum course and camp. They live on the Physics Lyceum: Middle School overview.
To enroll, schedule a call. We confirm the right format and starting point for your student.
Part of the SoTS Physics Lyceum
Electricity and magnetism is one of four middle school topics in the SoTS Physics Lyceum: Middle School program in Princeton, NJ.
Mechanics. Thermodynamics. Electricity and magnetism. Optics. A motivated student finishes all four during 7th and 8th grade and arrives at the high school Lyceum already grounded in classical physics.
The Lyceum is built on the Deep Physics methodology: clear theory built up step by step, paired with thought experiments and problems worked together in seminar.