Welcome to Physics 325: Intermediate Mechanics and Relativity I.
Yes, that is the international
symbol indicating that pineapples are forbidden.
Note that
it is more common to find strictures regarding durians
than pineapples in Southeast Asia.
So what do pineapples have to do with classical mechanics? Oh, all sorts of things, primarily relating to foul-ups at Urkin's Deli & Hardware Emporium through which Jell-O is rendered viscous, rather than jiggly.
The first class of the semester will meet Wednesday, January 21 in 144 Loomis at 9 am. We'll handle a few bookkeeping and organizational matters, and then launch straight into Special Relativity. You're going to find that the words "preposterous" and "impossible" mean entirely different things.
Gnus
| Exam problem | Corresponding homework problem | Mean score (%) |
| 1 (Sawtooth Fourier) | 11.2 | 43.3% |
| 2 (Green's function) | 12.3 | 81.0% |
| 3a (Lorentz contraction) | Lots! | 81.5% |
| 3b (Four-spin) | 5.2 | |
| 4 (Coriolis effect) | 13.2 | 63.4% |
| 5 (Lagrangian Zamboni) | 14.1 | 84.4 |
| 6 (Image identification) | Various lecture notes pages | 89.7% |
I'll introduce new material in the Monday and Wednesday lectures and distribute a problem set covering the week's material in lecture on Wednesday. You'll turn in the problem set in class the following Wednesday. At the Monday evening problem session held two days before the problem set is due you'll have a chance to work a few simple problems on the material of the problem set. I will return graded problem sets a week after you turn them in.
Copies of my lecture notes will be available at the Illini Union Bookstore by the start of the semester. You should buy a set and bring them to class. These really are the notes that I will use when lecturing: they are typed (and even include a table of contents), but I will use the blackboard rather than a laptop and projector.
You can also view (but not print them) online.
The required text for the course is Classical Dynamics of Particles and Systems, 5th edition, by Stephen T. Thornton and Jerry B. Marion. It costs a bundle, so you might consider buying the fourth edition instead, or even the third. Any of these would be fine, although there is a small amount of material on chaos that is absent before the fourth edition so you might want to borrow a more recent version to read that chapter at some point. You can even get away with buying the second edition, if you can find one. (Marion, who was the sole author of the first and second editions, died in 1981, so he won't care what we do.)
If you'd like to buy a special relativity text, consider getting Spacetime Physics by Edwin F. Taylor and John Archibald Wheeler. Either the first or second edition is fine, although I have a greater fondness for the slimmer first edition. Wheeler's other text, coauthored with Kip Thorne and Charles Misner is a general relativity book titled Gravitation. Like the novel Bright Lights, Big City (Jay Mcinerney, 1984), it is written in the second person. This works fine in the novel but is intensely irritating in a textbook. (Go figure.) A relativity text is optional.
I'll give the lectures and write the homework, problem session, and exam problems. I do research in experimental elementary particle physics, in recent years focusing primarily on the design and future exploitation of the International Linear Collider. Because of the vagaries of funding for the physical sciences I am now concentrating primarily on the Mu2e experiment at Fermilab instead of the ILC. I also put a little time into matters relating to the nasty side of higher education accreditation. (You have no idea...)
Marcus Slavenas will run the Monday evening problem sessions. He is a graduate student in Engineering. The problem sessions should be lively: Loomis 139 has blackboards on all four walls. You'll work problems in small groups on the boards while Marcus prowls around, offering hints and suggestions. (I'll try to show up from time to time to help out.)
Umi Yamamoto is a graduate student in Physics. Lei Xing is also a Physics graduate student. Umi and Lei will grade homework problem sets.
When my car needs an oil change I just show up at the local Oil-I-Versity. Sometimes I'll call to see if they're open, but I never make an appointment.
Let's try doing office hours the same way. Since I'm usually in my office when I'm not out of town, call (or email) to check that I'll be around, and just stop by. It's also OK to show up unannounced, but you run the risk of catching me when I am in the middle of a phone meeting, or on my way to a seminar.
Marcus will also be available for consultation and advice; he'll hold office hours Fridays and Mondays at places and times to be determined. You can also call him for appointments outside of his regularly scheduled office hours.
Your course grade will be based on your homework (~30%), exams (~60%), and participation in weekly problem sessions (~10%). There will be two midterm exams and a final. I do not plan to curve the grades so it is to your advantage to work with other students to master the material.
I do not object to students working together to complete problem sets, but remember: the best way to prepare for exams is to learn to work problems. You should try working all the problems in a homework assignment before collaborating with your fellow students.
I will collect your problem set solutions at the start of class on Wednesdays, unless the problem set specifies otherwise. Homework that is late by up to one week will be penalized 50%. Homework that is more than one week late will not be graded.
Attendance at the Monday evening problem session is obligatory–show up on time to receive full credit. If you're late by more than 15 minutes we'll dock you 50%. If you're late by more than 30 minutes you will not receive credit.
If you're ill, contact me and also contact the emergency dean so I'll receive appropriate documentation. If something else comes up that interferes with your ability to complete an assignment on time, try to let me know in advance.
No
calculators, no computers
In previous physics courses you've done a lot of plugging-and-chugging. That's like what I do when I make pasta—I feed a gooey mess into the top of the machine, turn the crank, and voilà [sorry, wrong language] out come the noodles!
Many of the problems you've had in earlier physics courses have just been exercises in pattern matching: identify the information you're given and the quantity you are asked to determine, select a formula from an equation sheet, and calculate the numerical answer. If you are a skilled reader, you can learn to work problems like these even if you haven't a clue as to the nature of the underlying physics. And the formula you use to obtain a solution appears to be nothing more than a calculating tool: you enter inputs, push a button, and read off the output.
We (teaching faculty) call these one-step problems. As soon as you understand the problem's inputs and desired output, you're pretty much done.
Physics 325 is different. You are going to learn to use mathematics in a serious way. This is not a natural thing for a human being to do, and it may feel as unsettling as going off a diving board with your eyes closed. But you'll get the hang of it after a while, so have courage! We will expect you to show your algebraic work so we can follow your method of solution of the problems we assign. When we ask for a numerical answer you are to calculate it by hand. You will become familiar with binomial approximations, Pythagorean triples, and other calculational tools.
Unless a problem explicitly states otherwise, you are not to use any calculating devices or symbolic manipulation tools in any of your work. No calculators, no computers, no slide rules. And no use of electronic search tools to find material relating to solutions to problems you are working. I will only permit paper and pencil, and information you can find in (paper) textbooks and (paper) reference works such as calculus texts or tables of integrals and special functions. No fooling–you are on your honor to hold to this.
It is natural for those of us who do research to spend part of our time being completely and utterly clueless. We work on things that, initially, don't make any sense to us. But we usually figure stuff out, and sometimes have a lot of fun sorting out what's really under the hood.
When we are baffled what we'll do is to try something and then evaluate whether it was a useful thing to have done or not. If yes, great, if no we try something else.
You're going to find yourselves quite confused by all kinds of things that we cover in class. That's OK–when you're stuck, just try something and then evaluate whether you got lucky and stumbled onto a good path. Don't be put off by it: you'll almost always muddle through after a while, and you'll develop a taste for it after a time, rather than being unsettled by the experience.
Be bold, be fearless, draw good diagrams of the twisted things I give you to hammer flat, and sally forth.
• Special Relativity in 14 Easy (Hyper)lessons
• Australian National University Relativistic Optics: very cool graphics and animations.