Physics 201 (Classical Mechanics)
Text: Classical Mechanics (JR
Taylor) ------
note there are errata at the textbook
website
,
Supplementary: Marion, Spiegel, Wells,
Symon,
Boas (reserved
in Brauer)
Mathematical formulae: Dwight (QA310.D5), Prudnikov
(QA308.P7813) (reference shelf in Brauer)
All exams: (3-4 problems) open book
(Taylor only) and open notes (only your own)
Grades: approximately 30% hw problems and 70% exams
Expected mathematical skills:
(1) second order ordinary differential equations
(2) integral and differential calculus on several variables
(3) Fourier expansions
(4) matrix eigenvalues and eigenvectors
(All will be introduced as practical skills as needed with
no background.)
| week of | chapter | topics, main themes covered in lectures | problems due Friday 5pm |
| Jan 10 | 2 - 4 | Review of Conservation Laws and Newtonian methods | |
| Jan 15 | 5 | Linear oscillators, driven damped systems, phase space | 2.6, 3.21, 4.23 |
| Jan 22 | 12 | Fourier series, nonlinearity, real pendula, chaos, fractals | 5.13, 23 |
| Jan 29 | 7.1 - 7.5 |
Hamilton's Principle, Lagrangian dynamics, Energy equation | 5.43, 12.20, 21 |
| Feb 5 | 7.6 - 7.10 | Feynman (YHWH ?), connections to quantum mechanics | 7.3, 10 |
| Feb 7 | 2-5, 12 | Test 1 | |
| Feb 12 | 8.1 - 8.5 | Central Forces, Reduced mass | 7.14, 23 |
| Feb 19 | 8.6 - 9.5 | Kepler's laws, Rotating reference frames | 8.5, 12 |
| Feb 26 | 9.6 - 10 | Fictitious forces, Foucault's pendulum | 9.1, 16 |
| Mar 4 | 10.1 - 10.4 | Rigid Rotations, Inertia tensor, Principle moments | 10.3, 22 -- due Thursday | Mar 11 | --------------- | Spring Break (go find cherry blossoms) |
| Mar 18 | 10.5 - 10 | Euler's equations, Free rotation of a symmetrical top | 10.25, 36 |
| Mar 20 | 7 - 9 | Test 2 | |
| Mar 25 | 11.1 - 4 | Coupled oscillators, Normal modes | 11.17, 18 |
| Apr 1 | 11.5 - 7 | Normal coördinates, Weighted strings | 11.26, 27 |
| Apr 8 |
16.1 - 3 | Continuous systems, Waves on strings | this week's problems, |
| Apr 15 | 16.4 | One and three dimensional waves in general | |
| Apr 22 | Classical field theory and Heisenberg's principle | ||
| May 6 | Final Exam, 8am |
Cute Fourier synthesizer, interactive fourier transformer , cute wave tutorials, Fourier Transform of waves and noise (used in class).
Articles about fractals and randomness in the world:
"Random Fractals: Self -affinity in noise, music, mountains and clouds," Physica D38 (1989) 362-371 (whole volume on fractal stuff)
"Random fractal Forgeries" in Science and Uncertainty, ed Sara Nash (Science Reviews Ltd, 1985).
Books about fractals in nature:
Fractals, chaos, power laws : minutes from an infinite paradise / Manfred Schroeder.
If you want to play with the driven, damped pendulum, save the program to dos and edit/execute under Qbasic. It's quite old and clunky. Anyone want extra credit for re-writing it in a modern format?
There is a (stolen) simulator for a driven pendulum for anyone
who wants to
play with it. It's much more flexible, but slower.
and a "textbook" on
chaos
For those who can be discrete, here are the pages from Baierlein's book on the relationship between the Langrangian and quantum mechanics.
Solving physics problems is a creative activity at its best, not a rote process of following instructions