This is the first in a series of lecture notes for Physics 361. These notes are meant to provide a qualitative summary of each course lecture. Their goal is to prevent students, in their rush to take notes on every detail of the lectures, from losing sight of the broader picture: how topics fit together, what examples or particular topics show, and the motivations and justifications for steps taken in class.
Lecture 1:
Handouts:
1: Syllabus
2: Web Resources
3: Survey
4: Homework 1
Started with administrivia, mainly detailed on syllabus. Office hours fixed on Mondays 4 -- 6 pm, exam dates set for 10/8 and 11/19 (protest soon or forever hold your peace!). Discussed grading and homework policies, encouraged students to do oral presentation instead of final.
Elaborated on course outline from syllabus. Motivated and tried to give "flavor" of Lagrangian mechanics as a minimum principle, with formal advantages mentioned.
Surveyed students, to better estimate math and physics background. Students were not expected to know everything on the survey -- but hopefully, everyone knew at least one item!
Then refreshed our memories with a little physics. Reviewed
Basic Assumptions of Newtonian Measurement
Examples of Forces
We then motivated conservation laws. These 1) make solving for classical motions technically easier, and 2) reveal underlying symmetry structure that physical motions must obey. This second point will become much more beautiful and transparent when we study Lagrangian mechanics. We will state the common Newtonian conservation laws next time.
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KB