This is a one-semester course on Classical Mechanics, aimed at undergraduate (PHY422) and first-year graduate students.
The course will cover the following topics:
Depending on our progress, we will discuss some of the following topics:
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, meetings will be held online synchronously, via Zoom (see link in sidebar). The course has a flipped-classroom format: Students are expected to read assigned materials ahead of the class meetings. During the meetings, we will discuss open issues from the readings, and work through exercises in small groups. We will employ Zoom’s breakout room functionality to that end.
There are several textbook options that cover the essential material of the course, but the lectures themselves will not follow one specific text. Topics for each week will be given in some detail on the schedule page, alongside reading assignments that refer to the the following texts:
Analytical Mechanics by Nivaldo Lemos (Cambride University Press, 2018).
Classical Mechanics (3rd Edition) by Herbert Goldstein and Charles P. Poole & John Safko.
The required technologies and platforms for this course are
I recommend Slack for collaborative work and discussions outside of the class meetings. An official, members-only Slack channel has been set up.
Course materials will be hosted in a GitLab repository on MSU’s GitLab server. Lecture
notes, worksheets, homework assignments, and practice materials will be posted on this website, solutions will
only be made available through the repository. The most convenient way to obtain the most up to date version of
all materials is to perform a git pull
. For more information, check the page’s computation section.
A student who cannot attend the course for an extended period should inform me as soon as possible to discuss options for proceeding. These may range from making up for missed work in the same semester, or deferring the grade until completion of work at some agreed-upon later time. See MSU’s policies for deferred grades and medical leave.
I am working with the Department of Physics & Astronomy to set up contingencies for the event that I should be unable to continue serving as the primary instructor, due to COVID-19 or for any other reason.