Graduate Classical Mechanics (PHYSICS 603) -
Spring Semester 2020 - ODU
Tuesdays and Thursdays at 13:30 - 14:45 Room 202, OCNPS
News and announcements
Our class is over - I wish you all a rewarding (and healthy!) summer.
Here is the Final Exam and here is the solution.
You can submit your solutions by scanning them in or
typesetting them and sending them via email. Here are some "scanning hints":
- If at all possible, use a scanner, not a camera. Some cell phones have a built-in scanning app (for instance inside "Notes" on the iPhone)
which still would be better than just taking a regular photo.
- If you have to use a camera, make sure you have a
white background, white paper and black pen to write your solutions, and bright illumination for the photo.
Check if the photo is in focus and retake it if not.
- You may have access to some image-enhancement software - if so, please increase the contrast and brightness if your submission is
dark or without contrast, and try the sharpening tool. Alternatively, you can let me do those things, but I can do it only if you send
.JPG or .png or .tiff files, NOT pdf.
For reference, here is some Zoom-related info:
here and
here . You should be able to use either the web-based
client or, preferably, download the free app.
Due to security concerns, we will no longer use my personal meeting ID. Instead, you
should have all received an invitation with the meeting ID and a password. Please let me know
if you did not get this.
We will use the chat feature and "raise your hand" (if you want to ask a question
without interrupting the class), cameras for those who like, whiteboard/document camera and screen share, and
I will record all class sessions and post the link, as in
here .
Finally, don't forget about your participation project! Given the new situation, lecture
notes (typeset!) or Mathematica notebooks would be best; however, if you want to give a
presentation instead, please send the slides to me beforehand so I can post them.
Let me know if you need advice or ideas.
Physics Colloquium
I assume all colloquia are cancelled at this point until further notice
Further
Information
Textbooks:
- Required: H. Goldstein, C. Poole and J. Safko: Classical
Mechanics – 3rd edition, Addison Wesley 2002
- Optional (if you like a different approach): A.S. Fetter and J.D.
Walecka: Theoretical Mechanics of Particles and Continua (Dover
Publications)
Syllabus
Preliminary Schedule.
Note that we will likely have to change the schedule to accommodate the reduced available
time. More to follow.
Lecture Notes
These Lecture Notes are from previous years and will be updated as we move along the semester.
(See Information
on Mathematica for help with running notebooks)
N.B.: If my lectures
(notes) are too confusing for you, you can also check out Ian Balitsky's and Anatoly
Radyushkin's lecture notes. Note that the organization is quite
different (following more closely the book by Fetter and Walecka)
Week 1 - Introduction and
Lagrangian approach: Whiteboards Lecture 1, Lecture 2, Lecture Notes by R. Dodangodage
Week 2 - Equations of
motion, examples and Velocity-dependent potentials: Whiteboards Lecture 1, Lecture 2, Animation Screenshot, Mathematica Notebook,
Lecture Notes by AMSD Wijerathna
Week 3 - Hamilton's principle, Lagrangian Multipliers, conserved quantities: Day 1 by Isurumali NETHTHIKUMARA HATHTHELLAGE
(Further lecture notes are in the 2nd half of Week 2 above) - Whiteboards Lecture 1, Lecture 2, Mathematica Notebook; Lecture note on conservation laws by Sunil Pokharel.
Week 4 - Central
Force Problem, Kepler's Laws: Whiteboards Lecture
1, Lecture 2, Numerics1,
Numerics2, Mathematica
Notebook1 , Mathematica Notebook2.
Also: Summary and Notebook on properties of ellipses and
old Lecture Notes by Pushpa Pandey. Also:
Lecture Notes by D. Cameron,
Another drawing of ellipses.
NEW
Lecture Notes by H. Pokhrel.
Week 5 - 1.) Continuation of Central Force Problem - Scattering - Whiteboard; 2.) Small
coupled oscillations: Whiteboard. Lecture notes by Raj Ghimire.
Week 6 - 1.) Finish coupled oscillations. Whiteboard. Mathematica Notebooks 1 and 2. 2.) Rotations and
kinematics of rigid bodies - Whiteboard, 2nd Whiteboard. Older lecture notes.
Week 7 - More
on rotations (see Week 6 ). Whiteboards Lecture 1, Lecture 2. Also: Graphic
about Inertia Ellipsoid, and web pages 1 and 2 about the first
interstellar asteroid (why did I post that?)
Week 8 -
Dynamics of rotating bodies. First lecture on Tuesday 3/3 in class, second lecture on Thursday 3/5 for self-study. See
previous lecture notes (for both days), including
the precession of earth's axis of rotation.
Whiteboard for the in-class lecture and older
Whiteboards from previous semester for Lecture 1 and
Lecture 2. Mathematica Notebook shown in class, for symmetric top with gravitational field, with initial
conditions specified in terms of psi-dot, phi-dot and theta. Here are
two screenshots from that notebook (you are strongly encouraged to play
with it):
- A rotating bicycle wheel,
initially with a horizontal axis at rest. You can see how the axis will
keep dipping down and back up, with corresponding changes in phi-dot
and psi-dot.
- A rotating upright top (with some
tilt relative to the z-axis). You can see how its axis will follow a
"curlicue" pattern, moving (= precessing) "backwards" when the top is
more upright and "forwards" when it is more tilted (nutation).
Week 9 - Hamiltonian
Mechanics. Tuesday 3/24 Lecture .
Thursday 3/26 Lecture (unfortunately only partially - my
apologies!). Also, here is a pdf version of my slides today.
Here are up-to-date Lecture Notes by MD AZIZ AR RAHMAN.
Last Year's Whiteboards Lecture 1, Lecture 2. Lecture Notes by B. Khanal.
See also Week 10 on Phase Space.
Presentation by A. Coxe on Chaos, Condensed version as presented on Thursday, 3/26.
Week 10 - Phase Space, Canonical Transformations.
Whiteboards Lecture 1, Lecture 2. Lecture
notes by M. Pokhrel; Animation by J.
Frechem
Here is the recording of the
Tuesday 3/31 Lecture and my
presentation . And here is the recording of the
Thursday 4/2 Lecture and my
presentation .
NOTE:
Week 11 - Canonical Transformations - is included in Week 10, so to keep with the original
schedule, we'll skip directly to Week 12 for the week of April 6.
Here is some more related material: Poisson Brackets. Whiteboards Lecture 1, Lecture 2. Lecture notes by G. Sterling.
Week 12 - ICTs, Poisson brackets, infinite dimensions.
Whiteboards: Lecture 1 and Lecture 2.
Here is the recording of the
Tuesday 4/7 Lecture
and Thursday 4/9 Lecture .
Older Whiteboards: Lecture 1, Lecture 2. Lecture Notes by A. Maps
Week 13 - Special Relativity: Intro,
Minkowski space, Kinematics.
Whiteboards: Lecture 1, Lecture 2. Lecture notes: Lecture 1 ,
Lecture 2.
Recordings: Tuesday 4/14 Lecture ; Password: b1!&5S$? --
Thursday 4/16 Lecture ; Password: c7&4Duy8
Older Whiteboards: Lecture 1, Lecture 2, Old Lecture 1, Old Lecture 2.
Week 14 - Collisions, Lagrangian, Hamiltonian and Electromagnetic interaction in Special Relativity.
Tuesday 4/21 Lecture recording -- Password: 0h@538x1 -- and
Lecture Notes;
Thursday 4/23 Lecture recording ; Password: 6A&sYz$5 .
Lecture notes on the electromagnetic field Lagrangian.
Previous year's Whiteboard; Previous year's summary Whiteboard.
Homework Problem Sets
HW Problem Set #1 -- Solution #1
HW Problem Set #2 -- Solution #2
HW Problem Set #3 -- Solution #3
HW Problem Set #4 -- Solution #4
HW Problem Set #5 -- Solution #5
HW Problem Set #6 -- Solution #6
MIDTERM EXAM (Take-Home) -- Solution
HW Problem Set #7 -- Solution #7
HW Problem Set #8 - here are the relevant pages from Goldstein et al.
-- Solution #8
HW Problem Set #9 - here is again the relevant page from Goldstein et al.
-- Solution #9
Final HW Problem Set #10 -- Solution #10
Return to S. Kuhn Homepage.