Physics 3345

Advanced Mechanics - Spring 1998

Course Information

Lecturer: Professor Randall J. Scalise
Lecture meeting times and place: Tuesday and Thursday 3:30-5:00pm on room 116 Fondren Science
Office hours: in 104 Fondren Science 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:
- Marion and Thornton, Classical Dynamics, 4th edition, and
- Shankar, Basic Training in Mathematics.
Errata for Marion and Thornton, 4th ed.
- 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.
- 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.
- p171 Figure (c) caption: "pendulums" should be "pendula".
- 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.
- p465 In the first line of equation (12.24), the first term in parenthses is missing a plus sign.
- p585 equation (B.2a) left-hand side: comma missing between arguments of F.
Lecture Notes: on reserve in the Science Information Center
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
1998 Calendar
University Holidays: 19 January, 7-15 March, 10 April 1998.
Homework Assignments Due dates are strictly enforced. Solutions are posted in the Science Information Center.
- Assignment #1 - 1 page PostScript bytes, PDF bytes
Anonymous Feedback
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:
- Lorenz - Chaos mpeg movie. A demonstration of sensitive dependence on initial conditions for a Lorentzian non-linear system. You will see a string of 100 initial conditions which evolve over time.Credit goes to Tom Doucett trd@christa.unh.edu (thanks also to Kevin Short).
- Follow - Chaos mpeg movie. The synchronization of two chaotic systems. The systems here are based on the Lorenz equations, where the x-coordinate of the first system is used to drive the second system into synchrony. You will see two traces representing the two systems. The traces will converge when synchrony is achieved. The second system will be "kicked out" again after convergence, so you can see that it resynchronizes quickly. Credit for the mpeg file again to: Tom Doucette, trd@christa.unh.edu
- Colliding Galaxies
- Java Physics Resources
- Centrifugal and Coriolis Java Applets
- Frank Potter's Science Gems
- C-ship - explore special relativity through starship flight simulation.
- - Relativity Links: Sites, movies, and literature.
- Nobel Laureates in Physics
- Dictionary of Scientific Quotations
- Physicists on the Money
- Images of Famous Physicists (from UCSB)
- Pictures of Famous Physicists
- Contributions of Women to Physics
- Physics Unit Conversion Page
- Usenet Physics FAQ

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