Frequently Asked Questions
I will try to answer here your main questions from lecture (not just
"frequently asked" ones, but any well-posed questions). Please ask
again if anything is still not clear!
Note I will occasionally go back later and add to or amend an answer.
- January 8 FAQ 1 Newton's Laws, conservation of momentum pdf html
- January 9 FAQ 2 Newton's Laws in polar coordinates pdf html
- January 13 FAQ 3 Drag, projectiles pdf html
- January 14 FAQ 4 Momentum, center of mass, torque, angular momentum pdf html
- January 21 FAQ 5 Work, energy, conservative forces, potential energy, conservation of energy, 1D potentials pdf html
- January 27 FAQ 6 Spherical coordinates, central forces, Taylor expansions, simple harmonic motion pdf html
- February 3 FAQ 7 2D harmonic oscillation, phase space, damped oscillations pdf html
- February 4 FAQ 8 Driven oscillations, resonance pdf html
- February 10 FAQ 9 Fourier series, nonlinear systems pdf html
- February 11 FAQ 10 Nonlinear oscillators, bifurcation diagrams, chaos pdf html
- February 13 FAQ 11 Calculus of variations, Euler-Lagrange equation pdf html
- February 24 FAQ 13 Lagrange's equations, Hamilton's Principle, constraints pdf html
- February 25 FAQ 14 Generalized coordinates, conservation laws, the Hamiltonian pdf html
- February 27 FAQ 15 Lagrange's equations with constraints pdf html
- March 3 FAQ 16 Hamiltonian mechanics pdf html
- March 5 FAQ 17 Two-body central force problem, reduced mass, effective potential pdf html
- March 23 FAQ 18 Orbits, the Kepler problem pdf html
- March 24 FAQ 19 Non-inertial reference frames, fictitious forces, rotating reference frames pdf html
- March 26 FAQ 20 Centrifugal and Coriolis forces in the rotating Earth frame pdf html
- March 30 FAQ 21 Rigid body rotation, inertia tensor pdf html
- April 2 FAQ 22 Principal axes, eigenvalues and eigenvectors pdf html
- April 9 FAQ 23 Euler's equations, precession pdf html
- April 13 FAQ 24 Coupled oscillators, normal modes pdf html
- April 16 FAQ 25 General case for coupled oscillators pdf html