ScientificaNow

Websites - the internet contains the sum total of human knowledge, most of which is wrong

I like physics, but I love cartoons - Stephen Hawking

The following are resources for teaching/learning physics at a post-16 level (A-level or similar). If you are looking for resources for pre-16 level physics (GCSE or similar) try our science pages.

The internet is so large these days that finding something that is helpful and true is becoming increasingly difficult, even if you have excellent Googling skills. Gone are the days when the only science on the web came from academics and other qualified individuals. These days, searching for answers to a science problem is just as likely to throw up utter garbage, that makes "A wizard did it!" sound sane by comparison, as it is the correct answer. Worse than that are the ones that sound so very convincing but are fundamentally wrong.
The websites below have been carefully selected to be reliable, useful, and aimed at the right level - and where possible, free to use.

	Isaac Physics Isaac Physics is an active learning site centred around the idea that doing is the best way to learn. The site offers a wide range of useful resources including virtual lessons and interactive questions. The site is free (there is a charge of about £1 for a question book but it's not necessary) and can be used without signing up, though there are some useful features if you do. It's most useful feature is having a teacher link to student's accounts so they can use the questions as homework (they get to see whether you have tried the questions, completed them, or just ignored them). Compared to MCQ:Physics? - Better for learning with several hints to push you in the right direction and feedback on what might be the reason why you got the answer wrong. Not as good for practice and revision since the questions don't change in any way.
	PhET Simulations PhET provides a wide range of apps that simulate experiments and physical phenomena. Many of the apps have been converted to html5, or run inside a javascript applet, and can therefore be used straight in the browser. Some of the older ones run on Flash which is falling out of use, or java which will require you to run it off your own computer. The have also made Apple and Play store apps, that collect together the html5 apps, for less than £1 so you can use them on the go on phones and tablets. The simulations' source codes are open source.
	Khan Academy Khan Academy is an excellent collection of teaching videos and test questions. From their homepage they direct you to sign up (for free), but if you go directly to the courses there is nothing stopping you accessing all the content - you progress won't be saved though, so pick what's best for you. For teachers, much like Isaac Physics, you can sign up a whole class, assign them work and track their progress. As a distance learning or flipped classroom tool this is one of the most complete out there, let it do most of the work and focus on the problems students have instead. The test questions are less difficult than exam questions (for A-level at least) but there are a few more of them that you currently get on Isaac Physics. Compared to MCQ:Physics? - Better for learning, no hints but lots of learning resources and feedback on why the wrong answers are wrong. Not as good for practice and revision since the questions don't change in any way.
	HyperPhysics HyperPhysics is old school, but that doesn't mean it's outdated. It doesn't have videos* or interactive content**, but it does have content that is clear, easy to find, comprehensive (up to the first year of uni), and very well put together. If you are intending to take part in Olympiads or applying for top universities then this is a great place to get some help, while still being good for average students. It's refreshing to use a site that cares more about the content than making it visually beautiful. *It does have videos, but there aren't many and they are quite old - better ones are probably available on YouTube, but they might still be worth checking out. **It does sometimes allow you to put numbers into a calculation which could be useful for creating your own questions, or looking at what changes as the values change (i.e. what are the outcomes of a collision depending on the relative masses of the two objects)
	Physics & Maths Tutor Physics and Maths Tutor is a good collection of revision notes and past papers (including the old spec ones that aren't always available on the examboards' sites). Having them all in one place is very convenient.
	A-level Physics Online A-level physics online has a huge number of teaching videos all grouped by examboard as well as topic so you won't go off topic unless you want to. The AS videos are all free, the A2 and extra content is behind a pay wall that will cost you £20 to get past. If you learn well from videos, or have the money to chuck at it, then it's worth it - that's half the cost of an hour with a good tutor. It's a good homeschooling investment too. That's not necessarily an affordable amount of money for everyone, so the general recommendation is to try the free sites above first. Schools can get a bulk discount, and big discounts on top if they have a high percentage of FSM.
	Wikipedia Wikipedia gets a bad rep in academic circles that both is and isn't justified. Since anyone can edit the pages there isn't even a semi-guarantee that everything is correct; but then again, the chances that any of these sites (ScientificaNow included) has no errors is pretty small. Most of the content of Wikipedia is correct, lots of people see it and errors are generally corrected quickly. The deliberate errors tend to be on more popular content. There is a much bigger problem with Wikipedia pages - Content overload. Both the amount and depth of detail are often far beyond what a student, or even a teacher, would ever need. This can make it difficult to make sense of if you are just learning. What it does give you is an excellent starting point - key terms and phrases, references, and ideas about what you might want to Google next. Just don't quote it as a reference.
	TES The Times Educational Suppliment used to be an excellent place to find teaching resources for both teachers and students, these days...not so much. It's free to use, but you do need to sign up in order to download anything. The number of resources is huge, but it can often be difficult to separate the good from the useless. To make matters worse, many of the best resources are now pay to access rather than free - and cost is no guarantee of quality. For teachers it can be worth a look, but we would recommend that it's probably quicker to put together a powerpoint or worksheet from scratch rather than search TES for something that fits your needs (a physicist looking for a KS4 biology worksheet may feel otherwise). Students would probably do better on other sites, or looking at a YouTube video.