Hi Diploma students
These are comprehensive IB Physics revision notes for your independent study, free and open to anyone.
Please take note that although succinct notes are essential towards your revision, they should not be the only materials you cover — working through practice problems from your textbook and past papers are just as important.
Happy revising. — Mr. Suta
🧭Start here
The course changed substantially for first teaching in 2023, and a great deal of material still circulating online describes a syllabus that no longer exists. If you have used older physics notes, websites or past papers, read this first.
📚Syllabus contents
There are no longer any options, and there is no Paper 3. Use the rail on the left, or the cards below, to open any topic.
Space, time and motion
Kinematics, forces and momentum, work and energy; at HL also rigid body mechanics and special relativity.
The particulate nature of matter
Thermal energy, the greenhouse effect, gas laws, current and circuits; at HL also thermodynamics.
Wave behaviour
Simple harmonic motion, the wave model, wave phenomena, standing waves and resonance, the Doppler effect.
Fields
Gravitational fields, electric and magnetic fields, motion in electromagnetic fields; at HL also induction.
Nuclear and quantum physics
Atomic structure, radioactive decay, fission, fusion and stars; at HL also quantum physics.
📋Assessment
🎓Official IB resources
These are the documents that actually govern the course. Most sit behind your school’s IB login on My IB and the Programme Resource Centre, so ask me if you cannot reach one.
- Physics guide — first assessment 2025. The definitive statement of what is examinable.
- Physics data booklet — you get this in every exam. Work with it open from day one.
- Teacher support material — includes annotated sample internal assessments, which are the single most useful thing to read before starting your own.
- Extended Essay guide — current criteria. Beware older versions online.
- Approaches to teaching and learning — the ATL skills framework.
📜A note on past papers
I no longer link to the unofficial past-paper archives that circulate online. They host IB assessment material without permission, they move domain every few months, and pointing you at them sits badly alongside the academic honesty policy you sign. Ask me for past questions and I will give you properly licensed ones through school.
Bear in mind too that papers from 2024 and earlier were set on the previous syllabus. They still contain useful physics, but their structure, their options and some of their content no longer match what you will sit.