READING ASSIGNMENTS
.Reading assignments will be given for each lecture. The
knowledge gained from pre-lecture and post-lecture reading should enable you
to extract more from each lecture. The primary reading assignments are designed to prepare for class and for studying
the lecture notes immediately after each class in order to cover the additional material and examples that were not included in the lecture due to time
constaints.
It is crucial that students keep up with the material since each lecture is
based on understanding material presented in prior lectures. Lecture notes
are provided as reading assignments to review five topics that you should have
studied in prior courses and are not discussed in class. These five topics are matrix algebra, vector
algebra, vector differential calculus, vector integral calculus, Fourier
analysis, gravitation, introductory oscillations, and introductory Special
theory of Relativity. These pre-lecture reading assignments will allow more
time to be spent discussing interesting aspects of the subject during
lectures.
| Date | Lecture notes | Topic | |
| 3.Sept | 1, 2 | A brief history of classical mechanics. Mathematic preliminaries. | |
| 8 Sept | 2 | Newtonian mechanics. | |
| 10 Sept | 3 | Linearly-damped linear oscillator and wavemotion | |
| 15 Sept | 4 | Non-linear mechanics and chaos | |
| 17 Sept | 5 | Calculus of variations | |
| 22 Sept | 5 | Calculus of variations | |
| 24 Sept | 6 | Lagrangian dynamics | |
| 29 Sept | 6 | Holonomic systems | |
| 1 Oct | 6 | Non-holonomic systems | |
| 6 Oct | 7 | Symmetries, invariance, and Hamiltonian | |
| 8 Oct | 8 | Hamiltonian mechanics | |
| 15 Oct | 9 | Two-body motion for conservative central force | |
| 20 Oct | 9 | Central-force orbit stability, two-body scattering | |
| 22 Oct | 10 | Motion in non-inertial reference frames | |
| 27 Oct | 10 | Motion in a rotating reference frame | |
| 29 Oct | 11 | .Rigid body rotation: inertial properties | |
| 30 Oct | Review for midterm exam on 30 October | ||
| 3 Nov | 11 | Rigid-body motion: equations of motion | |
| 5 Nov | 11 | Dynamics of rigid bodies. | |
| 10 Nov | 12 | Coupled linear oscillators | |
| 12 Nov | 13 | Normal modes of many-body coupled linear oscillators | |
| 17 Nov | 13 | Non-standard Lagrangian, Hamilton's Principle | |
| 19 Nov | 14 | Poisson brackets. Canonical transformations | |
| 24 Nov | 14 | Hamilton-Jacobi theory | |
| 1 Dec | 14/15 | Action-angles variables. Mechanics in the continua | |
| 3 Dec | 16 | Relativistic mechanics | |
| 8 Dec | 17 | Transition to quantum mechanics. Epilogue | |
| 10 Dec | Review |