Overview of course material: Physics 321, Classical Mechanics

Department of Physics and Astronomy, Michigan State University, USA

Lecture notes as Jupyter-book

The teaching material is produced in various formats for printing and on-screen reading.

Classical Mechanics Notes

Week 2 January 9-13: Introduction to the course, simple motion problems and forces

Week 3 January 16-20: From simple motion problems to forces, analytical and numerical approaches

Week 4 January 23-27: Forces, Analytical studies, simple experiments and numerical approaches

Week 5 January 30-February 3: Work and energy, conservative forces and conservation of important quantities

Week 6 February 6-10: Conservative forces, momentum and angular momentum conservation

Week 7 February 13-17: Summary conservative forces and start Harmonic oscillations

Week 8 February 20-24: Harmonic oscillations and various types of motion

Week 9 February 27-March 3: Harmonic oscillations and damped motion

Week 11 March 13-17: Harmonic oscillations: forced oscillations ann Fourier Series

Week 12 March 20-24: Two-body problems and Central Forces

Week 13 March 27-31: Two-body problems and Central Forces

Week 14 April 3-7: Two-body problems and scattering

Week 15 April 10-14: Two-body scattering and Lagrangians and the Calculus of Variations

Week 16 April 17-21: Lagrangians and the Calculus of Variations

Week 17 April 24-28: Lagrangians and the Calculus of Variations and summary of course, discussion of final exam

Week 18 May 1-5: Finals week

First homework set, due January 20

Second homework set, due January 27

Third homework set, due February 3

Fourth homework set, due February 10

Fifth homework set, due February 17

Sixth homework set, due March 17

Seventh homework set, due March 24

Eighth homework set, due March 31

Ninth homework set, due April 28

Tenth homework set, due May 1

First midterm project, due March 3

Second midterm project, due April 14

Final project, due May 5