Duration:
Number of lectures per week: 3
Assessment: Regular assignments
End-of-year Examination: One 2-hour One 3-hour Final examination

Description: First and second parts of the course are devoted to classical mechanics

• Newton's laws, Constrained dynamics, Generalized coordinates and forces, D'Alambert's principle
• Lagrange's equations, Hamilton principle, Calculus of variations, Conservation laws
• Motion in central potential
• Rigid body motion, Euler equations
• Oscillations: Equilibrium and motion near equilibrium
• Hamilton formalism: Legendre transform, Hamilton equations, Liouville theorem
• Canonical transformations
• Hamilton-Jacobi equations, action-angle variables
  

Third part of the course introduces special theory of relativity and classical mechanics of continuous systems and fields.

See also http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~frolovs/Mechanics/Mechanics.html for further information.

Objectives: Introduction to Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics, Introduction to special relativity and field theory.

Textbooks:
    L.D. Landau and E.M. Lifshitz/Mechanics, Butterworth-Heinemann
    H. Goldstein/Classical Mechanics, third edition, Addison Wesley
    V.I. Arnold,/Mathematical Methods of Classical Mechanics, Springer-Verlag Berlin and Heidelberg GmbH & Co. K.

Mar 26, 2007