Course Information
Lectures at MWF 10:30-11:20 on zoom
| Dr. Andrew Frey a dot frey at uwinnipeg dot ca |
Marker: TBA For questions about marking only |
| Office Hours by appointment |
This is the course homepage for PHYS-3203, Advanced Mechanics.
I welcome feedback and comments on the course. If you're more comfortable commenting anonymously, please feel free to upload a plain text file to the homework upload link (PDF and word documents are ok but may contain information that identifies you).
Texts
- Required: Mechanics and Relativity by Idema, Sept 2019 ed
- Required: Variational Principles in Classical Mechanics by Cline, 2nd ed
- These texts are both available through the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license. You may print them if you wish; see here for a permission form to take to university printing services.
In addition, some extra reading (from other texts, journal articles, etc) may be assigned.
Important Dates
- First Lecture: Jan 6, 2021
- Winter Reading Week: Feb 14-20, 2021 (no class)
- In-Class Test: March 2-3, 2021 (take-home)
- Voluntary Withdrawal Date: Mar 16, 2021
- University Holiday: April 2, 2021
- Last Lecture: Apr 7, 2021
- Course Project Due: April 9, 2021
- Review Session: 3PM April 12, 2021
- Final Exam: due April 15, 2021
Reading Schedule
Reading assignments will be posted on the course web page. You are responsible for keeping up with the reading; material covered in the reading will not necessarily be discussed in the class lectures but may be relevant to assignments. If you click the topic title, you'll get a scanned copy of my lecture notes.
Books are identified by the authors' initials. Italicized reading is optional.
| Dates | Topic | Reading |
|---|---|---|
| 6-15 Jan | Lagrangian & Hamiltonian Mechanics: Calculus of Variations | C§5.1-5,9 C§5.6,7 |
| 15-25 Jan | Lagrangian & Hamiltonian Mechanics: Lagrangian Formalism | C§6.1-6,10; C§6.7-9 for examples |
| 27 Jan - 3 Feb | Lagrangian & Hamiltonian Mechanics: Hamiltonian Formalism | C§7.2-5,7,11-13;8.1-3;15.2; C§2.11;8.4-5 |
| 3-10 Feb | Lagrangian & Hamiltonian Mechanics: Rigid Bodies | C§13.13-15,18,23 |
| 12-26 Feb | Coupled Harmonic Oscillators: General Problem | C§14.2,3,5,6; C§14.7,8; I§8.4 |
| 1-3 March | Review & Midterm Test | |
| 5-12 Mar | Coupled Harmonic Oscillators: Waves on a String | C§14.10,3.11; I§9.1-3; C§16.3 |
| 12-17 Mar | Systems of Particles (CM frame and selected examples/applications) | C§11.2,3,11; I§4.8; C§11.13 |
| 22-29 Mar | Special Relativity: Lorentz Transformations | I§11.1-4; C§17.5.1-3; C§17.2-3 |
| 31 Mar - 7 Apr | Special Relativity: Momentum & Applications | C§17.5.4; I chapters 13,14 |
| 13-15 Apr | Take-home Final Exam |
Any copy of copyrighted material on this web site is made solely for the use by a student, staff member, faculty member or library patron for research, private study, review, criticism, news reporting, education, satire, or parody. Any other use may be an infringement of copyright if done without securing the permission of the copyright owner.
Assignments
Policies
Please see the course outline for the official statement of homework policies. The following are guidelines:
- Assignments will only be posted on this web page; you must let me know if you need alternate delivery.
- Assignments will be posted Wednesday and are typically due the next Wednesday. Assignments are due by 10:59PM on the listed due date. Make sure to label your assignment with your name.
- Upload homeworks to this link.
- Assignments may be scans to PDF, PDF prepared by LaTeX, or PDF prepared with a word processor using an equation editor.
- Include your name on your assignment. Name your files with first initial, last name, and assignment number. If you need multiple files, label them in order with lower case letters. Example: AFrey_hw1.pdf or AFrey_hw1a.pdf, AFrey_hw1b.pdf, etc.
- Collaboration is allowed, but you must write up your own solutions independently (in your own words).
- Late assignments will only be accepted with prior permission from the instructor.
- Assignments that are not neatly organized and written will receive zero credit (one warning allowed). Please see the course outline.
- If you find a mistake in grading, please talk to Dr Frey.
- Instructions for Maple and Mathematica
Homework Sets
Solutions removed for security reasons.
- Assignment 1 due 13 Jan,
- Assignment 2 due 20 Jan,
- Assignment 3 due 27 Jan,
- Assignment 4 due 3 Feb,
- Assignment 5 due 10 Feb,
- Assignment 6 due 24 Feb,
- Assignment 7 due 10 Mar,
- Assignment 8 due 17 Mar,
- Assignment 9 due 24 Mar,
- Assignment 10 due 12 Apr,
Course Project
Please see the project instructions
Project deadlines:
- Topic approval 17 March 2021
- Paper due date 9 April 2021 10:59PM
Last updated: 9:54 on 2 Sept 2021