What is the course Classical Mechanics ?

[Fizex]

What is the course "Classical Mechanics"?

What is this course? Just a little harder version of calculus intro. to physics I? It's on the schedule as a sophmore course, and I have heard of a graduate course with the title too. What do you learn in it? I don't want to be retaught the very basics again like Newton's laws.

 

[Vanadium 50]

You need to look at the syllabus to tell what material will be covered.

 

[eXorikos]

At my university it was a course on Lagrange and Hamilton formalism for classical mechanics and on classical chaos.

 

[Vanadium 50]

We can have 100 people explain what this course was like where they took it, but only one matters: Fizex's university.

 

[eXorikos]

It will be in that direction anyway. Maybe it'll go deeper, but that's the general idea, not?

 

[Klockan3]

It will be in that direction anyway. Maybe it'll go deeper, but that's the general idea, not?

It will be about forces, torque and objects moving in potential fields, so yes. But it will be done properly with vectors and such and maybe even going into analytical mechanics.

 

[eXorikos]

Properly with vectors? My physics professors always told us to get rid of vectors as fast as you can, because they make things harder most of the times.

 

[Klockan3]

Properly with vectors? My physics professors always told us to get rid of vectors as fast as you can, because they make things harder most of the times.

Care to explain further? You mean to mostly skip them while jumping straight into analytical?

 

[eXorikos]

Ofcourse you need to learn to work with them first, but that stops for us at General Physics I.

 

[G01]

Like others said, we don't have the syllabus so I can't give you a definite answer.

However most physics programs have a course beyond intro physics called "Classical Mechanics." On average, that course usually covers:

Newtonian Mechanics- harder problems and more advanced analysis than was done in intro.

Lagrangian and Hamiltonian Formulations of Mechanics- Not something you covered in intro physics I bet. Very Important.

Rotational Motion- More advanced treatments of Torque, Moments of Inertia, etc. probably utilizing tensors.

Mechanics in Non Inertial Frames

Coupled OscillatorsThe short answer is, if your course catalog tells you you need to take it after intro to mechanics, then it most likely contains new material. Believe it or not, there is more to mechanics than what you get in your first year course. :)

 

[D H]

Believe it or not, there is more to mechanics than what you get in your first year course. :)

Believe it or not, even that sophomore/junior level classical mechanics course is just a start. Many graduate physics programs offer a class in classical mechanics; the canonical text being Goldstein.

 

[cmos]

It's on the schedule as a sophmore course, and I have heard of a graduate course with the title too. What do you learn in it? I don't want to be retaught the very basics again like Newton's laws.

The physics curriculum:
Your first two years, you are taught all of "core" physics.
Your last two years, you are retaught all of "core" physics.
Your first year in graduate school, you are retaught all of "core" physics.

The catch (i.e. what makes it interesting) is that each subsequent time, you approach the subject from a more mathematically/logically mature angle. You go more in-depth and the idea is that, by graduate school, you'll have acquired the abilities that is necessary to make the discoveries that advance physics.

To give you an example, what do you study in first-year physics? Classical mechanics, electromagnetism, thermodynamics, and quantum mechanics - right? Well, when you get to your junior and senior years, there's at least one whole class for each of those subjects.

 

[G01]

Believe it or not, even that sophomore/junior level classical mechanics course is just a start. Many graduate physics programs offer a class in classical mechanics; the canonical text being Goldstein.

The physics curriculum:
Your first two years, you are taught all of "core" physics.
Your last two years, you are retaught all of "core" physics.
Your first year in graduate school, you are retaught all of "core" physics.

The catch (i.e. what makes it interesting) is that each subsequent time, you approach the subject from a more mathematically/logically mature angle. You go more in-depth and the idea is that, by graduate school, you'll have acquired the abilities that is necessary to make the discoveries that advance physics.

To give you an example, what do you study in first-year physics? Classical mechanics, electromagnetism, thermodynamics, and quantum mechanics - right? Well, when you get to your junior and senior years, there's at least one whole class for each of those subjects.

I'm in my second course in graduate E&M and still no where close to understanding all of E&M! There is just so much knowledge out there, that I doubt it's even possible for someone to learn "all" of anyone area of physics, let alone physics as a whole.

That's one of the great things about it though. There is always more to learn!

 

[Phyisab****]

That's one of the great things about it though. There is always more to learn!

Quoted for truth.