Regarding College Classical Mechanics and the mathematics therein

[Matthewkind]

I'll be attending college in a few months, and I would like to know what mathematics to study in order to understand my classical mechanics class. Could anyone help me? I've heard that I should know ODEs and PDEs but I didn't think such math was required. Is this true? And what should I be studying if not? I don't think I'm taking algebraic physics, so I know calculus will be included. At any rate, thanks and please assist me! =D

 

[jtbell]

If this is a typical freshman level introductory physics class for physics and engineering majors, it will use a little bit of calculus, but not much, and mostly to simplify certain derivations. You'll get the most "bang for the buck" or "bang for the hour" by reviewing basic trignometry, and practicing your algebra.

In particular you should be able to solve equations symbolically, that is, rearrange an equation that has mostly variables, not numbers, so as to get a new equation that isolates one variable on the left side. You'll find that it is generally much preferred to do as much of the algebra as possible, symbolically, and then plug in numbers at the end and do the arithmetic in one shot, instead of plugging in the numbers first and then doing a lot of arithmetic while rearranging the equation.