20422 Analytical Mechanics

Credits: 3 intermediate credits in Physics

Prerequisites: none

Required: Mechanics, Electricity and Magnetism, Differential and Integral Calculus I (or Infinitesimal Calculus I), Linear Algebra I (or Linear Algebra for Natural Science Students), Introduction to Ordinary Differential Equations (or Ordinary Differential Equations I), and the ability to read scientific texts in English

Recommended: Differential and Integral Calculus II (or Infinitesimal Calculus II + Infinitesimal Calculus III)

The course is based on three chapters from Mechanics: From Newton’s Laws to Deterministic Chaos (5th ed.), by F. Scheck (Springer Verlag, 2010).

This course presents mechanics on a much higher level than does the basic course, Mechanics (20215). Students are acquainted with basic concepts of modern physics such as variational principles, Lagrange equations, the Hamiltonian function, symmetries and conservation laws.

Topics: Elementary Newtonian mechanics; The principles of canonical mechanics; The mechanics of rigid bodies.