Syllabus

This course focusses on high level mechanics, and will continue directly from the material in Classical Mechanics I. Our journey will take us away form the Newtonian formulation of mechanics to the analytical framework of Lagrange and Hamilton, allowing us to tackle more complex and physically realistic problems that would be otherwise be near-impossible to solve. We will spend some time deriving these new approaches, using the technique of calculus of variations. The course will finish on the topic of true theoretical mechanics (e.g. Hamilton-Jacobi theory) which naturally leads into quantum and particle physics.

Details

Classical Mechanics II (ID: 014201) takes place in the fall/winter semester. Lectures are held in room 302 in Science Building 5 from 13:00 - 14:30 (3rd period) Friday. The material will be the subject of seminars held immediately after each lecture.

If you wish to contact me my email address is: alex@oia.hokudai.ac.jp and I can be found in room 2-9-11 (Science Building 2, 9th floor, room 11).

Last year's exam can be downloaded from here.

The examlpes from lectures can be found here.

Lecture slides

Part 1 [27/09 + 04/10] Calculus of variations.

Part 2 [11/10 + 18/10] The Lagrangian and Euler-Lagrange equations.

Part 3 [8/11 + 15/11 + 22/11] Conserved quantities, equilibria and constraints, Lagrangian multipliers.

Part 4 [27/11 + 4/12] Classical problems with the Lagrangian. Here is a gif of a driven undamped oscillator.

Part 5 [11/12 + 18/12] Coupled oscillations.

Part 6 [8/01 + 15/01] Hamiltonian mechanics.

Part 7 [22/01] Theoretical mechanics.

Exam [31/01]