BRIEF INTRODUCTION CLASSICAL MECHANICS ILLUSTRATIVE PROBLEMS

Based on the lecture notes for a course on Classical Mechanics, students with a basic knowledge of calculus should be able to follow this book. Unlike other textbooks, exercises are not included because the main goal is to equip students with the skills to problem-solve. An old-fashioned yet efficient method has been to provide a step-by-step derivation of the fundamental formulas, giving students an overview of the subject through various illustrative examples and showing how to apply the general results to relevant problems in Classical Mechanics.

Contents:

• Force and Energy
• Newtonian Gravity
• Scattering and Systems of Particles
• Non-Inertial Frames
• Extended Rigid Bodies
• Lagrangian Formulation
• Hamiltonian Formulation
• Variational Problems
• Appendices:
  • Derivation of the Lagrange Equations
  • Prolate and Oblate Coordinates
  • Laplace Equation

Readership: Graduate students in Classical Mechanics with a basic knowledge of Calculus.