PHYSICS 121, 131, 141 -- GENERAL PHYSICS I: MECHANICS

Level
Physics 121:
Fundamentals of Physics, 5th Edition, by Halliday, Resnick, and Walker

Physics 131:
Physics, 4th Edition, by Halliday, Resnick, and Krane
Quick Calculus - A Self-Teaching Guide, by Kleppner and Ramsey

Physics 141:
An Introduction to Mechanics, by Kleppner and Kolenkow

Prerequisites
Satisfactory performance on the Physical Sciences Placement Examination and either satisfactory performance on the Calculus Placement or concurrent registration in a course in calculus. (See Physical Sciences Collegiate Division booklet for details.)

Syllabus
  1. Basic Concepts and Tools
    1. Physical quantities, observables, process of measurement, coordinate systems, transformation properties of physical quantities, dimensions, systems of units.
    2. *Coordinate transformations, translation, rotation.
    3. Vectors, addition and subtraction, decomposition, unit vectors, translation and rotation of vectors, scalar and vector product.
  2. Kinematics and Dynamics
    1. Motion in one dimension, velocity, acceleration, uniformly accelerated motion.
    2. Motion in two and three dimension, velocity vector, acceleration vector, motion of projectiles.
    3. General case, curvilinear non-uniform motion, tangential, centripetal components of acceleration.
    4. Circular motion, angular velocity and acceleration.
    5. Fundamentals of Newtonian Mechanics
    6. Newton's first, second and third law, inertial and gravitational mass.
    7. Forces, basic applications of Newton's laws.
    8. Equations of motion from Newton's second law. Constant force, pendulum. Forces in curvilinear coordinates.
    9. Relative motion, uniform translation, accelerated and rotating frames.
    10. Gravitational force, universal gravitation, Kepler's third law. Gravitational field of force, potential, field of spherical shell.
  3. Work and Energy
    1. Work, work-energy theorem, kinetic energy.
    2. Dissipative forces, conservative forces, potential energy, conservation of energy.
    3. Applications: escape velocity, spring oscillator, pendulum harmonic oscillator, diatomic molecule.
    4. *Equations of motion from energy conservation, case of central forces.
    5. Power
  4. Momentum, Collisions
    1. Motion of system of particles, center of mass, generalization of Newton's laws, momentum conservation, impulse.
    2. Energy in relative motion, kinetic energy of system of particles.
    3. Elastic and inelastic collisions, ballistic pendulum. Elastic collisions: *Center of mass and laboratory system cross-section.
  5. Torque and Angular Momentum
    1. Point particle: Conservation of angular momentum, central forces, Kepler's second law.
    2. Angular momentum of system of particles, orbital and spin angular momentum.
    3. Rotation of rigid bodies about fixed axis of rotation, moment of inertia, *rotation about parallel axis.
    4. *Precession of spin angular momentum.
    5. Rotational energy for point particle, rigid body. Rolling wheels, power in rotational motion.
  6. Elements of Statics
    1. Forces applied to rigid body, couple, composition of coplanar, parallel forces.
    2. Equilibrium of rigid bodies.
  7. Harmonic Motion
    1. Review of spring oscillator, simple pendulum. Compound, torsional pendulum.
    2. *Damped harmonic motion, driven harmonic oscillator, resonance
  8. *Introduction to Special Relativity
    1. Michelson-Morley experiment. Postulates of special relativity. Galilean, Lorentz transformation of coordinates.
    2. Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction, time dilation. Addition of velocities.
_____________________________
* Topics normally omitted in 121
_____________________________

Additional Topics for PHYSICS 121
  1. Mechanics of Fluids
    1. Fluid Statics: Liquids and gases, pressure, Archimedes principle, determination of density.
    2. Fluid dynamics: Bernoulli's law, Torricelli's law. Laminar and viscous flow, aerofoils, hydrofoils.
  2. Elasticity
    1. stress; strain
  3. Examples from Biology and Medicine

Lecture Demonstrations
The instructor will make extensive use of lecture demonstrations to clarify and make more vivid the phenomena being discussed.

LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS--PHYSICS 121, 131, 141


back to Table of Contents