Physics Word Search for Mechanics, Waves, Heat and Modern Physics

A printable physics puzzle with its answer key for a high school course, plus an easier physical science list.

Name Date

Physics Word Search

Find every word hidden in the grid. Words go across and down.

0 of 16 words found

HKVMHNUCLEUSANO

MREYATOMRDDJPTO

TMCLMOSVTHERMAL

NWTSIRVIQTNPAHI

OZOYTQAAUHSEHER

UARSAUNLAIITARV

ICWAVELENGTHSQH

BIOKNGTATNYMFUU

GPEVDXXTULAYIAA

INERTIAAMLBBSRL

QPFRICTIONPMSKS

REFRACTIONSMISE

RSACCELERATIONO

AOLPHOTONXRGNAL

ULLNVFREQUENCYE

This grid is wider and taller than its box. Slide it to see every letter.To drag, hold the first letter for a moment, then slide.Keyboard: Tab to the grid, arrow keys to move, Enter on the first and last letter.

AccelerationACCELERATION
InertiaINERTIA
VectorVECTOR
TorqueTORQUE
FrictionFRICTION
WavelengthWAVELENGTH
FrequencyFREQUENCY
RefractionREFRACTION
PhotonPHOTON
DensityDENSITY
ThermalTHERMAL
AtomATOM
NucleusNUCLEUS
QuantumQUANTUM
FissionFISSION
QuarkQUARK

16 of 24 words from the Physics Key Terms list.

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Answer key: Physics Word Search

HKVMHNUCLEUSANO

MREYATOMRDDJPTO

TMCLMOSVTHERMAL

NWTSIRVIQTNPAHI

OZOYTQAAUHSEHER

UARSAUNLAIITARV

ICWAVELENGTHSQH

BIOKNGTATNYMFUU

GPEVDXXTULAYIAA

INERTIAAMLBBSRL

QPFRICTIONPMSKS

REFRACTIONSMISE

RSACCELERATIONO

AOLPHOTONXRGNAL

ULLNVFREQUENCYE

ACCELERATION, INERTIA, VECTOR, TORQUE, FRICTION, WAVELENGTH, FREQUENCY, REFRACTION, PHOTON, DENSITY, THERMAL, ATOM, NUCLEUS, QUANTUM, FISSION, QUARK

Next step Give a spelling test on the wave and light words Build a puzzle from your own physics unit notes

All 129 words

Motion, Forces and Energy 25

Acceleration How quickly velocity changes, measured in meters per second squared.
Angular Describes motion measured by the angle turned, as in radians per second.
Dynamics The study of how forces change the motion of objects.
Force A push or a pull, measured in newtons.
Friction A force that resists sliding between two surfaces that touch.
Gravitation The pull between any two masses, weaker with the square of their distance.
Impulse Force times the time it acts, equal to the change in momentum.
Inertia The tendency of an object to stay at rest or to keep moving as it is.
Kinematics The study of motion that does not ask what causes it.
Kinetic The kind of energy an object has because it is moving.
Lever arm Distance from the turning point to the line of a force; a longer one gives more torque.
Mass The amount of matter in an object, measured in kilograms.
Momentum Mass times velocity, measured in kilogram meters per second.
Pivot The fixed point that a lever or a seesaw turns around; also called a fulcrum.
Potential The kind of energy stored by position or shape, as in a stretched spring.

Show all 129 words (114 more)

Motion, Forces and Energy, continued

Power How fast energy is transferred, measured in watts.
Projectile A thrown or launched object that moves under gravity alone.
Range The horizontal distance a projectile covers before it lands.
Resultant The single arrow you get by adding two or more vectors.
Scalar A quantity with size but no direction, such as time or temperature.
Statics The study of forces on objects that stay in balance and do not accelerate.
Torque The turning effect of a force, measured in newton-meters.
Vector A quantity with both size and direction, often drawn as an arrow.
Velocity How fast and which way something moves, measured in meters per second.
Work Force times the distance moved along its direction, measured in joules.

Waves, Sound and Light 27

Amplitude The greatest distance a wave moves from its rest position.
Concave Curved inward like the inside of a bowl; a mirror of this shape brings light to a focus.
Convex Bulging outward like the back of a spoon; a mirror of this shape spreads light out.
Crest The highest point of a wave.
Decibel A unit for how loud a sound is. Every added 10 of them means ten times the sound power.
Diffraction The bending of a wave around an edge or through a narrow gap.
Echo A sound heard again after it bounces back from a surface.
Focal point The spot where a lens or a curved mirror brings parallel rays of light together.
Frequency The number of wave cycles each second, measured in hertz.
Interference What happens when two waves meet and either add together or cancel out.
Laser A device that gives a narrow beam of light; its name is an acronym and the first ran in 1960.
Lens A curved piece of glass that bends light to focus it or spread it out.
Longitudinal A wave whose motion is along its direction of travel, like sound in air.
Node A point on a standing wave that does not move.
Photon A single packet of light; it has no mass and always travels at light speed.
Pitch How high or low a sound seems, set by its frequency.
Prism A block of glass that splits white light into its colors.
Reflection The bouncing of a wave off a surface, leaving at the same angle it arrived.
Refraction The bending of light where it crosses from one material into another, such as air into water.
Resonance A large vibration built up by pushing a system at its natural frequency.
Spectrum The full spread of electromagnetic waves, from radio waves to gamma rays.
Standing wave A pattern of vibration that stays in place, with still points called nodes.
Transverse A wave whose motion is at right angles to its direction of travel, like light.
Trough The lowest point of a wave.
Ultrasound Sound above 20,000 hertz, too high for people to hear.
Ultraviolet Light just beyond violet, at a higher frequency than the eye can see.
Wavelength The distance from one peak of a wave to the next, measured in meters.

Heat and Matter 23

Absolute zero The lowest possible temperature, 0 kelvin, about minus 273.15 degrees Celsius.
Adiabatic Describes a process in which no heat enters or leaves the system.
Buoyant force The upward push of a liquid or gas on any object placed in it.
Conduction Heat passing through matter by direct contact, as along a metal spoon.
Convection Heat carried by the movement of a liquid or gas, as in rising warm air.
Density Mass per unit of volume, measured in kilograms per cubic meter.
Entropy A measure of disorder; in an isolated system it never goes down.
Fluid Any liquid or gas; matter that can flow.
Heat engine A machine that turns a flow of thermal energy into work, as a steam locomotive does.
Heat pump A machine that moves thermal energy from a cold place to a warm one, as a refrigerator does.
Ideal gas A model in which particles are tiny points that never attract or repel one another.
Internal energy Everything a system's atoms and molecules hold in motion and in storage, added together.
Kilocalorie 4,184 joules; the Calorie printed on a US food label.
Laminar Describes smooth flow in which layers of liquid or gas slide past without mixing.
Mole SI unit for amount of substance; one holds about 602 sextillion atoms or other tiny units.
Pressure Force per unit of area, measured in pascals.
Radiation Energy that travels as electromagnetic waves, as heat does from the Sun.
Specific heat The energy needed to warm 1 kilogram of a substance by 1 degree Celsius.
Temperature What a thermometer measures, in degrees Celsius or in kelvins.
Thermal The kind of energy that comes from the random motion of atoms and molecules.
Thermodynamics The part of physics about heat, work, temperature and the laws that link them.
Turbulence Rough, swirling flow in which the layers of a liquid or gas mix together.
Vapor The gas form of something that is usually a liquid or a solid, such as the water in damp air.

Modern Physics 29

Alpha Radiation made of two protons and two neutrons; also the first Greek letter.
Antimatter Matter made of antiparticles; it vanishes in a burst of energy when it meets ordinary matter.
Atom The basic unit of matter: a nucleus with electrons around it.
Beta Radiation made of fast electrons or positrons; also the second Greek letter.
Boson A particle with whole-number spin, such as a photon; named after Satyendra Nath Bose.
Decay The change of an unstable nucleus into another by giving off radiation.
Electron A tiny particle with negative charge that moves around the nucleus of an atom.
Fission The splitting of a heavy nucleus into lighter ones, which releases energy.
Fusion The joining of light nuclei into a heavier one; it lights the Sun and other stars.
Gamma The highest-energy kind of light, given off by nuclei; also the third Greek letter.
Gluon The particle that carries the strong force and binds quarks together.
Hadron A particle made of quarks held by the strong force, such as a proton or a neutron.
Half-life The time it takes for 50 percent of the nuclei in a radioactive sample to break down.
Isotope One of several forms of an element with the same protons but different numbers of neutrons.
Lepton A particle that does not feel the strong force, such as an electron or a muon.
Muon A particle like an electron but about 207 times as heavy.
Neutrino A neutral particle that interacts so weakly it passes straight through ordinary matter.
Neutron A particle in the nucleus that carries no charge.
Nucleus The small, dense center of an atom, made of protons and neutrons.
Particle A tiny piece of matter, such as an electron or a quark.
Photoelectric The effect in which light knocks electrons out of a material; it won Einstein a Nobel Prize.
Positron The antiparticle of the electron, with a positive charge; discovered in 1932.
Proton A positively charged particle in the nucleus, built of two up quarks and one down quark.
Quantum The smallest possible packet of something, such as energy.
Quark A basic building block of matter, never found alone; three of them make a proton.
Relativity Einstein's theory of how moving observers measure space, time and gravity.
Spacetime Length, width, height and time treated together as one four-dimensional whole.
Time dilation The slowing of a moving clock as seen by someone at rest; GPS satellites allow for it.
Uncertainty Heisenberg's principle of this: position and momentum cannot both be known exactly.

People and Units of Physics 25

Becquerel French discoverer of radioactivity; the SI unit for a rate of radioactive decay.
Bernoulli Swiss author of Hydrodynamica, 1738; his principle links faster flow to lower pressure.
Bohr Danish physicist whose 1913 model of the atom won him the 1922 Nobel Prize.
Carnot French engineer whose 1824 essay set the top efficiency any heat engine can reach.
Celsius Swedish astronomer; the scale named after him puts freezing water at 0 degrees and boiling at 100.
Curie Marie, who discovered polonium and radium and won two Nobel Prizes; an older unit of radioactivity.
Doppler Austrian who explained in 1842 why pitch shifts when a source of sound moves.
Einstein Physicist of special and general relativity, with the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Fermi Italian-born physicist who led the building of the first nuclear reactor, in Chicago in 1942.
Galileo Italian who studied pendulums, falling bodies, inertia and the flight of projectiles.
Heisenberg German physicist of the 1927 uncertainty principle; Nobel Prize for 1932.
Hertz German physicist who proved that electromagnetic waves exist; the unit of frequency.
Hooke English scientist whose 1660 law says a spring stretches in step with the force on it.
Huygens Dutch scientist of the pendulum clock and an early wave theory of light.
Joule English brewer's son who linked heat and mechanical work; the unit of energy.
Kelvin Title of William Thomson; the temperature unit whose scale starts at absolute zero.
Kepler German astronomer who found the three laws of how planets travel around the Sun.
Mach Austrian physicist; his number compares a speed with the speed of sound.
Meitner Physicist who helped discover nuclear fission; element 109 is named after her.
Newton English author of the 1687 Principia and three laws of motion; the unit of force.
Noether German mathematician who proved that symmetries and conservation laws are linked.
Pascal French thinker who cleared up the ideas of pressure and vacuum; the unit of pressure.
Planck German physicist whose energy quanta of 1900 began quantum theory.
Rutherford New Zealand physicist who worked out in 1911 that the atom has a nucleus.
Watt Scottish engineer who improved the steam engine; the unit of power.

How this list was compiled: Own work: the word list and every clue were written for this page. The facts in the clues were checked on 2026-09-19 against the chapter glossaries of OpenStax College Physics 2e (https://openstax.org/books/college-physics-2e/pages/2-glossary) and Wikipedia, among them https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decibel and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacetime. Spellings follow the American Heritage Dictionary (https://www.ahdictionary.com/). Some clues were reworded on 2026-09-20, and any fact that changed was checked against Wikipedia the same day. Licence: own work

How it works

This physics word search hides 16 of 129 words in a 15 by 15 grid, starting with key terms such as Torque, Photon and Quark. Every word has a clue, and many name the unit: hertz for Frequency.

Read the full guide

Match the list to the unit you teach

Eight lists wait in the Start from a list row under the puzzle. Five run in course order: Motion, Forces and Energy (25 words), Waves, Sound and Light (27), Heat and Matter (23), Modern Physics (29) and People and Units of Physics (25). For a physical science word search, choose Easy Physical Science. Its 33 words of 4 or 5 letters, Force, Prism and Atom among them, come from all five, and the title on the sheet follows the list you pick.

Two sheets from the printer

Print or save as PDF sends 2 pages, sized for Letter or A4. The first has a Name and Date line above the grid and word list. The second is the answer key.

Twelve entries lose their space or hyphen in the grid: LEVERARM, HALFLIFE. The key terms are single words.
Heat and Wave are left out: each reads inside a longer entry, Heat pump or Wavelength.

Questions and answers

Does the physics word search have an answer key?

Yes. Show answers rings all 16 words on screen, and every printout ends with the key. Each press of New puzzle picks different words and hides them in new places, so keep a puzzle and its key together.

Why are there no electricity words?

Circuit, charge and magnet words have a page of their own, the electricity word search. This one covers mechanics, waves, heat and modern physics. To mix a few in, type them at the end of the word list under the grid.

Who is in the People and Units of Physics list?

Twenty-five names, from Galileo and Kepler to Meitner, Noether and Fermi. Nine are also units pupils meet: Newton, Joule, Watt, Pascal, Hertz, Kelvin, Celsius, Becquerel and Curie. Tick Show clues, not words, in More options, and the clues print in place of the names.

What is absolute zero?

The lowest possible temperature: 0 kelvin, about minus 273.15 degrees Celsius. Absolute zero is in Heat and Matter, and Kelvin, whose scale starts there, is in People and Units of Physics.

All 129 words

Motion, Forces and Energy 25

Motion, Forces and Energy, continued

Waves, Sound and Light 27

Heat and Matter 23

Modern Physics 29

People and Units of Physics 25

How it works

Match the list to the unit you teach

Two sheets from the printer

Questions and answers

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