Physics – Oxford Interview Questions
Subject Interview Guide – Physics
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The Physics guide discusses Oxford Interview Questions in depth with answers and approaches – along with possible points of discussion to further demonstrate your knowledge. It has been specially edited for applicants for each subject by a team of Oxford and Cambridge graduates.
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The Oxford Interview Guide – Physics
The Physics Interview Guide discusses the following questions in detail:
- When an ice cube melts in a glass of water, does the water level increase, decrease or stay the same?
- A tennis ball is placed on top of a basketball. The balls are dropped. To what height does the tennis ball bounce?
- How high can you go up a mountain on just a Mars bar?
- If you dig a hole right through the Earth and jump into it, what is your motion?
- If you leave a fridge turned on in a thermally isolated room, what happens to the room?
- If you could fold a piece of paper as many times as possible, how many times must you fold it to reach the moon?
- Sketch the displacement time and velocity time graph for a skydiver jumping out of a plane.
- Why can’t you light a candle in a spaceship?
- Why is the sky blue?
- Two identical beakers with the same volume of water are placed on each pan of a double-pan balance. A steel ball is suspended from a string and submerged in the water of one of the containers. A hollow plastic ball of the same volume is submerged in the water of the other container and fastened to the bottom of the beaker by a string. Will the balance move, and if so in which direction?
The Oxford Interview Guide – Physics
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“How can I prepare when the interviewer could ask me absolutely anything about Physics?”
By understanding how the interview works and, crucially, what it is that the interviewer is looking for. The interviewer is not looking to catch you out, but rather for you to demonstrate your curiosity, knowledge and passion for Physics.
“How am I able to do that?”
Demonstrate your enthusiasm and personality
Show that you enjoy studying Physics independently
The easiest way to demonstrate your enthusiasm for Physics is to show that you are self-motivated and have studied the subject in your free-time for enjoyment – for example through online lectures and independent reading. If you don’t know where to start, review our suggested reading list below.
Demonstrate your subject knowledge about and passion for Physics
The key to answering these questions is to always demonstrate your thought process aloud. The interviewer does not expect you to be able to answer every question immediately, but rather wants to determine that you are able to think about and work on unknown topics with confidence, intelligence and clarity – and they won’t be able to do that if you sit in silence! Use the list of questions below to prepare. Perhaps you can have a friend or relative ask you these questions so that you can develop your skills of thinking under time pressure and speaking out loud.
Physics Suggested Reading
Physics Interview Questions
How many grains of sand are there in the world?
Why is life X enantiomer-based rather than Y?
Why does the boiling point of water rise as salt is dissolved in it?
How many atoms are there in a brussel sprout?
What makes some chemicals explosive?
An alkane has 750 carbon atoms. Given the length of a carbon.’carbon bond and a carbon”hydrogen bond calculate the total length of the molecule.
Calculate the number of hydrogen atoms that are in the water in a glass.
Can you draw an alkane where every carbon atom is in a different NMR environment?
Can you think of any ways that playing in your school football team would make you better at Chemistry?
Can you change an endothermic reaction into an exothermic one?
Compare and contrast electronegativity and ionisation energy.
Compare and contrast hydrochloric acid to phosphoric acid.
Draw the shape of the molecule B2H6 .
Estimate the mass of oxygen in this building.
Explain the bonding in benzene.
How do glow sticks work?
How do the double bonds in a hydrocarbon affect its solubility?
How do you make aspirin?
How many isomers of XXX can you draw?
How many moles of water are there in this bottle of water?
How would you measure pH of a solution if I told you how many hydrogen ions there were in it?
The nucleus and electrons are oppositely charged. Why do electrons not crash into the nucleus?
What is the density of air in this room? What about outside? What about in Beijing?
What determines whether an acid is strong or weak?
What does pH stand for?
What is entropy?
What is the cause of Le Chatelier’s principle?
What is the difference between diamond and graphite? The similarities?
What is the difference between entropy and enthalpy?
What is the significance of bonding in benzene?
What is wrong with the periodic table?
What is your favourite element? Why?
What makes drugs physiologically active?
Where does Chemistry end and Physics begin?
Why are diamonds so expensive?
Why are the transition metals good catalysts?
Why are the transition metals so colourful?
Why are there so many steps in the cascade of reactions?
Why do we use water to dilute solutions?
Why does food taste better when it~s hot?
Why does the boiling point of water rise as salt is dissolved in it?
Why is glass transparent but the sand that it’s made from not?
Why is life carbon based and not silicon based?
Why is Vanadium so special?
You have 30 seconds to name as many functional groups as possible.
How would you travel through time?
When an ice cube melts in a glass of water, does the water level increase, decrease or stay the same?
How would you measure pH if I told you how many hydrogen ions there were?
How does a glow-stick work?
Tell me about these eggs?
Tell me about your life, from the beginning to what made you sit in that chair
Derive a Henderson equation.
What is ‘turning you on’ in chemistry at the moment?
How many molecules there were in the glass of water on the table?
If I could fold this piece of paper an infinite number of times how many times must I fold it to reach the moon?
How high can I go up a mountain having only eaten a mars bar?
What makes a material hard?
How would you measure pH of a solution if I told you how many hydrogen ions there were in it?
How does depressing a piano key make a sound?
Why do you think chemistry will change your life and the life of those around you?
Why does the boiling point of water rise as salt is dissolved in it?
How would you travel through time?
Explain the bonding in benzene.
Why does iron rust and how can the rusting be stopped?
On a hot day, what should you do with a fridge?
Write down an organic reaction you have studied at school and explain its mechanism.
How would a square wave differ from a sinusoidal wave when applying both to a transformer?
Why don’t fish freeze?
How many of these pebbles would it take to fill a car?
Why aren’t you applying to study Maths instead?
What would be the most exhilarating ride: being dropped through a tube to New York or New Zealand?
Does the snow falling on top of a train have an effect on its velocity?
What is the equation for the motion of a pendulum?
Why is the sky blue?
What happens if you throw a lead soldier or a ton of gold out of a boat, does the lake go up or down?
A container with liquid nitrogen is left in a laboratory, and its temperature is being recorded over a long period. The recorded temperature shows variations. Why?
Sketch the graph of x/(x-1).
How does a boat float?
How high can I go up a mountain having only eaten a Mars bar?
How would you reshape a cuboid wire to double its resistance?
I’m bouncing a marble, what is happening to the particles at the top of the marble?
A ball bearing is flying through space (vacuum and no overall gravitational field). It heads towards a doughnut, through it’s centre and out the other side. Draw graphs of 1) speed versus time and 2) acceleration versus time.
Draw the graphs of y=1/x +x and y=7+3cos(2x+pi/2).
Describe a heat engine.
Draw graph of weight versus time for the following: 1) man stands on scale very gently and then gets off again very gently; 2) man jumps onto scales and then jumps off again; 3) man stands on scale and lets his knees unlock so that he drops, then stops. For each of these describe the reasoning behind the graph.
The wall of death fairground ride: it’s spinning in a horizontal circle. Then the floor that people are standing on falls away. Calculate how fast it has to spin before the floor can fall away without the people dropping out given that : coefficient of friction=m and radius of the thing=r.
Derive an expression for the separation of fringes caused by Young’s Double Slit apparatus.
Calculate (in algebraic terms) the change that will take place to the fringe pattern when a piece of glass is placed in front of one of the slits. Draw the new fringe pattern.
If you leave the fridge turned on in a thermally isolated room, what happens to the room?
Calculate the speed a coin will hit the floor when dropped from 2m above the ground.
Does the snow falling on top of a train have an effect on its velocity?
Explain the different between entropy and enthalpy.
Explain the principle of how the global positioning system (GPS) operates.
How did the Greek astronomer Aristarchus of Samos determine the distance to the sun?
How can a plane fly upside down?
How can light be both a wave and a particle?
How do forest fires spread so quickly?
How does depressing a piano key make a sound?
How high can I go up a mountain having only eaten a Mars bar?
How high can I go up a mountain on just a Mars bar?
How many of these pebbles would it take to fill a car?
How much is the mass of nitrogen in this room?
How much water has to go through a hydroelectric power station in order for me to make a cup of coffee?
How would you explain what ‘momentum’ means, to a non-physicist?
How would you go about calculating the number of atoms in the world. What information would you need to calculate it and given this data work out the answer.
If you have a helium balloon on a string in a car, and the car accelerates, what happens to the balloon?
If a sand timer was turned over onto a weighing scale, would there be fluctuations in the weight displayed as the sand fell through?
If I am in a room with 7 people and guess all their birthdays, what is the probability of getting (only) one correct?
If I have a three litre and a five litre bottle. How can I get four litres of liquid?
Integrate y = cos2x + sinx2
Prove m3-m is always divisible by 6.
Sitting here explain how we know a centripetal force exists?
Suggest a method of storing large amounts of hydrogen.
The titanic weighed over 50,000 tonnes. Why did it not sink earlier?
What safety mechanisms prevent a plane from being damaged by lightning?How would you weigh the Earth?Why was 2011 an incredible year for physics?What is the area of your skin?
What is centrifugal force?
What is the equation for the motion of a pendulum?
What makes a material hard?
Why did the Titanic initially float? Why did it split into two?
Why does heat rise’?
Why don’t fish freeze?
Why can’t you light a candle in a spaceship?
How many grains of sand are there in the world?
What happens if I drop an ant?
The Oxford Interview Guide – Physics
The Physics Interview Guide discusses the following questions in detail:
- When an ice cube melts in a glass of water, does the water level increase, decrease or stay the same?
- A tennis ball is placed on top of a basketball. The balls are dropped. To what height does the tennis ball bounce?
- How high can you go up a mountain on just a Mars bar?
- If you dig a hole right through the Earth and jump into it, what is your motion?
- If you leave a fridge turned on in a thermally isolated room, what happens to the room?
- If you could fold a piece of paper as many times as possible, how many times must you fold it to reach the moon?
- Sketch the displacement time and velocity time graph for a skydiver jumping out of a plane.
- Why can’t you light a candle in a spaceship?
- Why is the sky blue?
- Two identical beakers with the same volume of water are placed on each pan of a double-pan balance. A steel ball is suspended from a string and submerged in the water of one of the containers. A hollow plastic ball of the same volume is submerged in the water of the other container and fastened to the bottom of the beaker by a string. Will the balance move, and if so in which direction?
The Oxford Interview Guide – Physics