Department of Physics Courses

PHY4222 Mechanics 2 - Spring 2013

Instructor: Yasu TakanoOffice: 2356 NPB; Phone: 392-9326; email: takano at phys.ufl.edu

Meeting time: MWF period 6 (12:50 pm - 1:40 pm) NPB 1002

Office hours: MWF period 7 (1:55 pm - 2:45 pm), T period 6 (12:50 pm - 1:40 pm), or by appointment

Textbook: Classical Mechanics by John R. Taylor

Prerequisites: PHY 3221, PHZ 3113, or equivalent

Synopsis:

This is the second part of the PHY 3221 - PHY 4222 sequence. Physics majors in the enriched option, who have taken PHZ 3113, are recommended to take this course without taking PHY 3221. The course covers Lagrange's equations, two-body central-force problems with an emphasis on Kepler orbits of planets and moons, noninertial frames with an emphasis on rotating frames, rotational motion of rigid bodies, coupled oscillators, chaos, and Hamiltonian mechanics. These subjects correspond to Chapters 7 through 13 of the textbook.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

5/02/2013 (Thursday) Final Exam scores and course grades can be viewed here. (There were errors in the grades posted today around 1:30 PM. They were corrected around 6:45 PM. I apologize for the errors.) Your graded exam is ready for pickup just outside Rm 2356. Have a nice summer!

4/24/2013 (Wednesday) Course evaluation: please evaluate this and other courses you have taken this semester, via GatorRator. The website is open only until Friday. Thank you for your participation. HW8 solutions have been posted.

4/22/2013 (Monday) Exams 1 through 3 given this semester have been posted in the Archive.

4/21/2013 (Sunday) Grade predictor has been updated to use an actual HW7 score, instead of a guess.

4/19/2013 (Friday) Grade prediction: a formula for preicting your grade is given on the Exams/Grades page.

4/18/2013 (Thursday) Last year's final exam has been posted on the Archive page. Don't worry about Problem 2, which comes from an area not covered this year. HW8 problems have been posted. If you do not know how to use a math program for numerically solving an ordinary differnetial equation, download an executable program for Windows from here. For other operating systems, the C source code, which you will need to compile, is here. In the program, omega, omega0, and beta have been set at the values needed for the homework. You will only need to specify the initial conditions, the drive level (gamma), and the time range. The program only generates numbers for plotting; to have a better understanding of the pendulum behavior, I strongly recommend you to play with the MyPhysicsLab applet, accessible via the Links on the sidebar to the left.

4/17/2013 (Wednesday) Logistic map: I have added inks to the applet used in class and to an article on the interesting history of the subject.

4/16/2013 (Tuesday) HW7 solutions have been posted.

4/12/2013 (Friday) Damped driven pendulum demo: a link to Abbasi's program used in class has been added to the Links.

4/08/2013 (Monday) No office hour on Tuesday, April 9.

4/06/2013 (Saturday) HW7 has been posted.

4/03/2013 (Wednesday) Exam 3 on Friday will have three problems, two from Chapter 10 and one from Chapter 11. See the Calendar for the areas covered by the exam.

4/01/2013 (Monday) HW6 solutions have been posted. The solutions for HW5 have been moved to the Archive.

3/31/2013 (Sunday) HW5 solutions have been posted.

3/24/2013 (Sunday) HW6 has been posted. Old Exam 3 has been posted on the Archive page. No office hour on Tuesday, March 26.

3/12/2013 (Tuesday) HW5 due date has been moved from Monday 3/18 to Friday 3/22 because of conflicts some students may have with the E&M exam on Monday. The due dates for HW6 and HW7 have been also moved to accomodate this change. See the Calendar page. (Thanks to Matt for requesting an extra time for HW5.)

3/12/2013 (Tuesday) HW5 has been posted.

2/26/2013 (Tuesday) HW4 solutions have been posted.

2/25/2013 (Monday) Old Exam 2 has been posted on the Archive page. Formulae provided in Exam 2 will be the same as those given near the top the old exam. You will be expected to be able to write down all other needed equations by using dimensional analysis or by generalizing a formula for a simple case, such as a circular orbit.

2/18/2013 (Monday) HW4 has been posted. Foucault's pendulum: links to the video and animation shown in class have been put on the Links page.

2/13/2013 (Wednesday) HW3 solutions have been posted.

2/08/2013 (Friday) The tide predictions for D-Day: go to the Links page for a link to an article pubiished in Physics Today.

2/06/2013 (Wednesday) HW3 has been posted. Exam 1: the average score for the exam was 23.1/30. Excellent!

1/31/2013 (Thursday) HW2 solutions have been posted.

1/23/2013 (Wednesday) Error: in the posted solution to Problem 7.22 for HW1, a*t appearing in the expression for U should be 1/2*a*t^2. This error does not affect the equation of motion, nor the final result.

1/20/2013 (Sunday) HW2 has been posted. Please note that the preliminary list posted on Friday, without an announcement, contained an error. Make sure to do problems in the new, final list. Old Exam 1 is now available via the Archive page.

1/18/2013 (Friday) HW1 solutions have been posted. See you on Wednesday.

1/13/2013 (Sunday) The Links page has been updated.

1/10/2013 (Thrusday) HW1 has been posted. Click "Homework" on the sidebar to downlad the pdf file. The homework will be due Wednesday, January 16, at the start of class.

1/07/2013 (Monday) Welcome to PHY4222! All announcements for this class will be made here on the course homepage. Make sure to check this page frequenctly.