The URL of this page is http://www.physics.smu.edu/~scalise/P3344sp00/
Physics 3344
Classical Mechanics - Spring 2000
Course Information
- Lecturer:
Professor Randall J. Scalise
- Lecture meeting times and place:
Tuesday and Thursday, 8:00-9:00am and 11:00am-noon
in 11 Fondren Science
- Office hours: Tuesday and Thursday 9:30-10:30am in 104
Fondren Science and by appointment
- Contact:
- Call or leave a message at 768-2504, or
- Leave a note in the Physics Department Office - 106 Fondren Science, or
- send me e-mail:
<scalise@mail.physics.smu.edu>
- Texts:
- Errata for Marion and Thornton, 4th ed.
- p41 above equation 1.121: "gradiant" should be "gradient".
(Caught by E. Reiman)
- p47 problem 1-32: It is confusing to call r-dot the magnitude of
the velocity vector. r-dot should be the time derivative of
the magnitude of vector r, which is very different from v. Change
to "the quantites r and v are the magnitudes... ".
- p66 equation (2.45): The "t" in the exponent should be capitalized.
- p97 top: "u_horz" should be "v_horz". (Caught by S. Thornton [no
relation])
- p119 In all three lines above Figure 3-8, "omega" with no subscript
should be "w". (Caught by E. Rittenburg)
- p121 First paragraph, fifth sentence: "...oscillate about zero
several times..." should be "...oscillate about zero an
infinite number of times..."
- p128 Second sentence after equation (3.63): the natural angular
frequency should be squared in the inequality.
- p177 just above section 4.7: "phenomenom" should be "phenomenon".
(Caught by A. Kramer)
- p182 Example 4.3, line 3: "interation" should be "iteration".
- p266 equation (7.133) first term: partial L should be delta L.
- p391 2nd paragraph, line 4: (3.5%) should be (0.35%).
- p391 2nd paragraph, line 7: the leading open parenthesis is never
closed.
- p443 1st paragraph, line 6: "period predicted for the precession
of the axis of rotation is 1/Omega" should be "2 Pi/Omega".
- p465 In the first line of equation (12.24), the first term in
parentheses is missing a plus sign.
- p480 equation (12.85) the first term in the 1,1 entry of the A matrix
should be "mgb" not "mgb^2".
- p585 equation (B.2a) left-hand side: comma missing between
arguments of F.
- Lecture Notes
- Exam Dates:
- Exam 1 - ???
- Exam 2 -
- Exam 3 -
- Grading: (Absolute)
Letter Grade Break Points
- Homework - 40%
- Exam 1 - 20%
- Exam 2 - 20%
- Exam 3 - 20%
- Grade Summary:
All the individual grades arranged by last four digits of
student ID number
- Syllabus
- 2000 Calendar
- Official University Calendar
- University Holidays:
- 11-19 March 2000 - Spring Break
- Friday 21 April 2000
- Homework Assignments Due dates are strictly enforced.
Solutions are posted in the Science Information Center.
- Extracurricular Activities
- Recommended Reading:
- Chaos by James Gleick
- Mathematica Manual by Stephen Wolfram
- Classical Mechanics 2nd ed. by Vernon D. Barger and
Martin G. Olsson
- Classical Mechanics by Herbert Goldstein (on reserve at
the SIC)
- Relevant Web Sites:
Back to Professor Scalise's Home Page