The NCERT Class 12 Physics Book Physics Part I is the first of the two official NCERT volumes for Class 12 Physics — the one that carries electricity and magnetism, from electric charges and fields to electromagnetic waves. It runs eight chapters across 214 printed pages, and the official NCERT PDF of every chapter is on this page.
What this page adds is an index read from the book itself: how many named sections, numbered figures and exercise questions each chapter carries, and the page each part starts on. If you were asked about capacitors, Kirchhoff’s rules or displacement current, the chapter index below gets you to the right chapter before you open a file.
The links on this page point straight to NCERT’s own files on ncert.nic.in — the current official edition, maintained here for the 2026-27 academic session.
Download the official Physics Part I PDFs
The files are NCERT’s own, hosted on the official NCERT website at ncert.nic.in — every link in the table below opens the chapter PDF directly, with no login and no third-party site in between. The eight chapter files are the same official edition the page numbers on this page refer to.
| Ch. | Chapter | Pages | Official PDF |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Electric Charges and Fields | 44 | |
| 2 | Electrostatic Potential and Capacitance | 36 | |
| 3 | Current Electricity | 26 | |
| 4 | Moving Charges and Magnetism | 29 | |
| 5 | Magnetism and Matter | 18 | |
| 6 | Electromagnetic Induction | 23 | |
| 7 | Alternating Current | 24 | |
| 8 | Electromagnetic Waves | 14 |
Class 12 Physics PDF: the book at a glance
The whole book, counted from the textbook itself:
- 8 chapters, each with its own verified official PDF linked above.
- 214 printed pages (pp. 1-214) across the eight chapters.
- 119 named sections — NCERT’s own numbered headings.
- 103 verified numbered figures indexed from the textbook.
- 89 end-of-chapter exercise questions, and 0 in-text activities — the whole practice load sits in the exercises.
These counts come from the NCERT textbook entries this directory indexes, not from the full CBSE subject scheme, and they are an index of the book, not an exam weightage.
Class 12 Physics index: what is inside each chapter
The directory below is the book measured chapter by chapter. A section is one of NCERT’s own numbered headings; a figure is a numbered figure indexed from the textbook; a question is an end-of-chapter exercise.
| Ch. | Chapter | Sections | Activities | Figures | Questions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Electric Charges and Fields | 24 | — | 18 | 23 |
| 2 | Electrostatic Potential and Capacitance | 21 | — | 26 | 11 |
| 3 | Current Electricity | 14 | — | 15 | 9 |
| 4 | Moving Charges and Magnetism | 15 | — | 14 | 13 |
| 5 | Magnetism and Matter | 12 | — | 3 | 7 |
| 6 | Electromagnetic Induction | 10 | — | 9 | 8 |
| 7 | Alternating Current | 10 | — | 14 | 8 |
| 8 | Electromagnetic Waves | 13 | — | 4 | 10 |
One pattern shows up before you read a word of any chapter: all eight print 0 activities, so the entire practice load of Physics Part I sits in the 89 exercise questions that close the chapters. What follows is a one-line map of each chapter, with the pages its main ideas start on.
Chapter 1: Electric Charges and Fields (pp. 1-44)
Chapter 1 runs the longest of the eight — 44 pages — and lays the foundations everything after it uses: electric charge (NCERT, p. 1), Coulomb’s law (p. 6), the electric field (p. 14), field lines (p. 19), electric flux (p. 21), the electric dipole (p. 23), and Gauss’s law (p. 29) with its applications (p. 33).
Chapter 2: Electrostatic Potential and Capacitance (pp. 45-80)
Chapter 2 moves from forces to energy: electrostatic potential (p. 47), potential due to a dipole (p. 49), equipotential surfaces (p. 54), the electrostatics of conductors (p. 61), dielectrics and polarisation (p. 65), and capacitors and capacitance (p. 67), closing with the energy stored in a capacitor (p. 73).
With 26 of the book’s 103 indexed figures, it is the most diagram-dense chapter in the volume — revise it by studying the figures, not just the text.
Chapter 3: Current Electricity (pp. 81-106)
Chapter 3 is where circuit work begins in earnest: electric current (p. 81), Ohm’s law (NCERT, p. 83), the drift of electrons and the origin of resistivity (p. 85), limitations of Ohm’s law (p. 89), electrical energy and power (p. 92), cells and emf (p. 93), Kirchhoff’s rules (p. 97) and the Wheatstone bridge (p. 100).
The chapter’s own closing notes flag two ideas students misstate: current is a scalar even when drawn with an arrow, and \(V = IR\) defines resistance rather than stating Ohm’s law.
Chapter 4: Moving Charges and Magnetism (pp. 107-135)
Chapter 4 adds magnetism to moving charges: the magnetic force and the Lorentz force (p. 109), motion in a magnetic field (p. 112), the Biot-Savart law (p. 113), the field on the axis of a circular current loop (p. 115), Ampere’s circuital law (p. 117), the solenoid (p. 121), the force between parallel currents (p. 122), torque on a current loop (p. 124) and the moving coil galvanometer (p. 129).
Its recap carries a contrast worth remembering: magnetic field lines always form closed loops, unlike electric field lines.
Chapter 5: Magnetism and Matter (pp. 136-153)
Chapter 5 treats magnets as matter: the bar magnet (p. 137), the bar magnet as an equivalent solenoid (p. 138), magnetism and Gauss’s law (p. 142), magnetisation and magnetic intensity (p. 145), and the magnetic properties of materials — diamagnetism, paramagnetism and ferromagnetism (pp. 147-149).
At 3 indexed figures in 18 pages it is the lightest diagram chapter, and its recap makes the point that magnetic monopoles do not exist.
Chapter 6: Electromagnetic Induction (pp. 154-176)
Chapter 6 connects changing fields to currents: the experiments of Faraday and Henry (p. 155), magnetic flux (p. 156), Faraday’s law of induction (NCERT, p. 157), Lenz’s law and conservation of energy (p. 160), motional electromotive force (p. 162), inductance (p. 165) and the AC generator (p. 170).
The generator section at p. 170 is the bridge into Chapter 7’s alternating current work.
Chapter 7: Alternating Current (pp. 177-200)
Chapter 7 handles time-varying currents: AC voltage applied to a resistor (p. 178), phasors (p. 181), AC across an inductor (p. 181) and a capacitor (p. 184), the series LCR circuit (p. 186) with resonance (p. 188), the power factor (p. 190) and transformers (p. 194).
Its recap makes a practical point: the 240 V quoted on a household socket is the rms value, not the peak — and with 14 figures, this is the third most diagram-heavy chapter in the book.
Chapter 8: Electromagnetic Waves (pp. 201-214)
Chapter 8 closes the volume in 14 pages — the shortest chapter — with displacement current (NCERT, p. 202), the nature of electromagnetic waves (p. 205) and the electromagnetic spectrum (p. 208) from radio waves to gamma rays (pp. 209-211).
It packs 10 exercise questions into those 14 pages, the densest question-per-page ratio in the book.
Chapter pages for deeper study
When one chapter is what you actually need — its derivations, figures and exercises worked through — the study pages below hold this site’s deeper material on Physics Part I.
| Ch. | Chapter page |
|---|---|
| 1 | Electric Charges and Fields (coming soon) |
| 2 | Electrostatic Potential and Capacitance (coming soon) |
| 3 | Current Electricity (coming soon) |
| 4 | Moving Charges and Magnetism (coming soon) |
| 5 | Magnetism and Matter (coming soon) |
| 6 | Electromagnetic Induction (coming soon) |
| 7 | Alternating Current (coming soon) |
| 8 | Electromagnetic Waves (coming soon) |
How to use the Class 12 Physics book
Read as one shelf, the eight chapters fall into five thematic units. The table groups them the way the physics connects, and the sequence after it is the order the book’s ideas actually build in.
| Unit | Chapters | Pages | What connects them |
|---|---|---|---|
| Electrostatics | Ch 1-2 | pp. 1-80 | charges at rest: fields, potential, capacitors |
| Current Electricity | Ch 3 | pp. 81-106 | moving charges in conductors, circuits |
| Magnetism | Ch 4-5 | pp. 107-153 | fields from moving charges, magnetic materials |
| Induction and AC | Ch 6-7 | pp. 154-200 | time-varying fields, alternating current |
| Electromagnetic Waves | Ch 8 | pp. 201-214 | unifying fields, the spectrum |
A study order that follows the physics:
- Chapters 1-2 first. Coulomb’s law (NCERT, p. 6) feeds potential (p. 47) and capacitance, so skipping Chapter 1 makes Chapter 2 slower than it needs to be.
- Chapter 3 next. Circuits assume you can handle fields and potential; they add current, resistance, cells and Kirchhoff’s rules (p. 97).
- Chapters 4-5 together. Moving charges produce the magnetic fields that Chapter 5’s materials respond to.
- Chapters 6-7 together. The AC generator (p. 170) applies Chapter 4’s magnetic force ideas, and Chapter 7’s alternating current work depends on Chapter 6’s inductance section (p. 165).
- Chapter 8 last. Displacement current and the spectrum tie the electric and magnetic halves of the book together.
If you have one night: start with the figure-heavy chapters, because Chapter 1’s field lines, Chapter 2’s equipotential surfaces and Chapter 7’s phasor diagrams carry ideas the text assumes you can see.
One caution before you plan: textbook contents and the examinable syllabus are not always identical — check the current official syllabus for what is examinable this session.
Related NCERT book pages
- The Class 12 hub lists the other NCERT Class 12 books this site indexes.
- The NCERT books root is the starting point for any class or subject.
- The Class 12 Physics hub holds subject-level material around this textbook.
Sources and data verification
- The section and figure data on this page come from the NCERT Class 12 Physics Part I textbook editions this directory indexes — currently the official chapter files on ncert.nic.in.
- The dataset covers the 8 chapters of Physics Part I only. It does not cover Physics Part II, and it is not the CBSE curriculum scheme: the counts here are an index of the textbook, not an exam weightage.
- This listing is maintained for the current academic session against the NCERT files on ncert.nic.in.
- NCERT settles textbooks, editions and PDFs; CBSE settles curriculum, syllabus and examinations.
Reference: NCERT Class 12 Physics Part I textbook, official edition on ncert.nic.in. Section titles quoted from the textbook; page references are to the official PDF.
Questions about the Class 12 Physics Part I book
How many chapters are in the NCERT Class 12 Physics Part I book?
Eight. They run from Electric Charges and Fields (pp. 1-44) to Electromagnetic Waves (pp. 201-214), covering 214 printed pages. The full list with chapter PDF links is in the download table at the top of this page.
Is the Class 12 Physics Part I PDF official and free to download?
Yes. Every chapter PDF in the table above is NCERT’s own file, hosted on ncert.nic.in, and free to download. The official edition is the one the page numbers on this page refer to.
Which chapter covers capacitors and capacitance?
Chapter 2, Electrostatic Potential and Capacitance. Capacitors and capacitance begin at p. 67, the parallel plate capacitor at p. 68, combinations of capacitors at p. 71 and energy stored in a capacitor at p. 73.
Which chapter covers Kirchhoff’s rules and the Wheatstone bridge?
Chapter 3, Current Electricity. Kirchhoff’s rules start at p. 97 and the Wheatstone bridge at p. 100, near the end of the chapter’s circuit work.
Does this page also cover Physics Part II?
No. This page indexes Physics Part I only — the 8 chapters on electricity and magnetism. Physics Part II is a separate NCERT textbook and is not indexed here.