Review of Classical Mechanics

• Newton's Laws:
  1. Objects at rest remain at rest, in the absence of external forces; objects in motion remain in motion with constant velocity, in the absence of external forces.
  2. F = ma
  3. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
• Law of Universal Gravitation
• Energy:
  • Kinetic energy
  • Potential energy
  • Each conservative force has an associated potential energy
• Conserved quantities:
  • Energy
  • Linear Momentum
  • Angular Momentum
• Stationary waves can be described by
  • amplitude
  • wavelength or wave number
  • phase
• Travelling waves can be described by
  • amplitude
  • wavelength or wave number
  • angular frequency or frequency
  • phase
  • wave speed
• Observers moving relative to each other see events happen in slightly different ways; their descriptions are connected by the Galilean transformations, e.g.

             x'  =  x  -  v*t
     

• Time flows uniformly everywhere.
• All objects have a position and velocity.

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Copyright © Michael Richmond. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.