Syllabus

This first of two classical mechanics courses will build upon material introduced in Physics 1. This course will provide students with a skill-set to solve actual real-life problems involving dynamics and kinematics, breaking away from the highly idealised systems in first year courses while laying the foundations for analytical mechanics in the future. We will also see some content covered before, but now we will explicitly derive solutions that were simply provided previously. This will involve a much broader mathematical toolbox such as differential equations, multidimensional derivatives, matrix and tensor algebra, hyperbolic functions and complex numbers. These will come in use as we discuss planetary orbits, vibrations of molecules, the motion of tides, and how rockets escape into space!

Details

Classical Mechanics I (ID: 027065) takes place in the spring/summer semester. Lectures will be provided via Moodle/ELMS, with seminars based on the same material following the usual lecture slot. The normal lecture+seminar time slots for these are from 13:00 - 14:30 (3rd period) and 14:45 - 16:15 (4th period) Friday.

If you wish to contact me my email address is: alex@oia.hokudai.ac.jp, and you can also message me via the ELMS/Moodle page for the course.

Lecture slides

Slides will be added here after each normal lecture slot, until that time they will lead to dead links.

Part 1 [1 session]: Introduction and different coordinate systems.

Part 2 [2 sessions]: Equations of motion and drag.

Part 3 [2 sessions]: Motion of extended objects, Newton's laws with changing mass.

Part 4 [2 sessions]: Energy, conservative forces and potentials.

Part 5 [2 sessions]: Oscillations: damped and driven SHM.

Part 6 [2 sessions]: Central forces: potential theory and orbital dynamics.

Part 7 [2 sessions]: Motion in non-inertial frames of reference.

Part 8 [2 sessions]: Motion of extended objects, inertia and rotations.

Exam: tentatively on 21/09/2020