Physics 106a: Topics in Classical Physics
Suggested Reading
Week one
Introductory survey, Lagrange's equations
Week two
Action principle, calculus of variations
- Hand and Finch chapter 2. See also section 9.2 for the double
pendulum.
Week three
Small oscillations
- Hand and Finch, sections 9.1 through 9.6 and start on chapter 3.
Week four
More on small oscillations
- Hand and Finch, chapter 3.
Week five
Central forces, planetary motion
- Hand and Finch, chapter 4.
Week six
Scattering and collisions
- Hand and Finch is rather skimpy on this, see for example
Marion and Thornton sections 9.6 to 9.10 for a better treatment.
Week seven
Hamiltonians, phase space
- Hand and Finch, chapter 5.
Week eight
Theoretical mechanics
- Hand and Finch, chapter 6 up to p. 222
- Differential forms handout (pdf)(ps)
Week nine
Rotating frames
- Hand and Finch, chapter 7.
Week ten
Rotating rigid bodies
- Hand and Finch, chapter 8.
Leftovers
Continuous media
- Looks like this will be be pushed back into Ph106b. Hand and Finch
doesn't do this topic; I'll see if I can think of a good reference or
two. Basically, an introduction to elasticity and fluid dynamics is
what I have in mind.
Ideas for Ph106b topics
integrable systems, approximation methods, chaos, instantons,
special relativity.