Classical Mechanics — Daily Schedule Term 3

Thursday, Oct. 30 — Study Chapter C11 — The derivation culminating in Eq. C11.14 is the central result showing that we can divide up the total kinetic energy into C.o.M. K.E. and internal K.E. &mdassh; The latter is very often, but not necessarily, rotational kinetic energy — It can also be pulsations or any other internal motion — Problem Set 11: 1. Re-do Problem 3 on Exam 1 where a rod was modeled as 20 equal masses, but this time compute the kinetic energy 2. C11B.6; 3. C11B.8; 4. C11M.7

Monday, Nov. 3 — Study Chapter N1 — Problem Set 12: 1. N1M.3; 2. N1M.4; 3. N1D.2 (you can use the result of N1D.1); 4. N1R.3 — The job in N1R.3 is to compare the acceleration required to brake straight to a halt vs. the acceleration required to swerve without braking, and if you find one acceleration is less than the other, then you know what the driver should do
Presentations:
- Grace: Present Exercise N1X.1 (and in addition, take a 2nd derivative to discover the object’s acceleration, including the acceleration’s components, magnitude, and direction) (a good thing to make the exercise more visual is to imagine what the trajectory given would look like and how it might come to be)
- Sam: Show how Figure N1.6(b) illustrates the 1/r in N1.17 (it would be good to photocopy and hand out the figure on p. 15)
- Sasha: Show how Figure N1.6(c) illustrates the v² in N1.17 (leverage Sam’s photocopy/handout)
- Brian: Take derivatives of x(t)=A cos ωt and y(t)=A sin ωt (much like Grace did for a known trajectory in her presentation)
Thursday, Nov. 6 — Study Chapter N2 — Problem Set 13: Forthcoming

Monday, Nov. 10 — Study Chapter N3 — Problem Set 14: Forthcoming
Thursday, Nov. 13 — Thursday, Nov. 13 Exam 2, covering Moore Chapters C8-C11 and N1-N3 — We could still move the exam to Nov. 17 (and still have it only cover through N3), but in that case we would cover N4 on Nov. 13

Monday, Dec. 15 — Exam 3
Thursday, Dec. 18 — Kepler’s Laws — Following Chapter N11 of Moore — Or perhaps use “Feynman’s Lost Lecture” — The goal is to see how Kepler’s Laws can be explained by Newton’s Laws, which is one of Newton’s definitive triumphs — Others in Newton’s day had suspicions and hand-waving arguments about the gravitational force law — Newton pushed the theory through to an unambiguous conclusion that explained Brahe’s, Kepler’s and Galileo’s work in a unifying sweep that has set the gold standard for all fields of science ever since