Classical Mechanics

An introductory course

Richard Fitzpatrick
Associate Professor of Physics
The University of Texas at Austin
Contents

1 Introduction 7

1.1 Major sources: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

1.2 What is classical mechanics? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

1.3 mks units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

1.4 Standard prefixes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

1.5 Other units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

1.6 Precision and significant figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

1.7 Dimensional analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

2 Motion in 1 dimension 18

2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

2.2 Displacement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

2.3 Velocity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

2.4 Acceleration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

2.5 Motion with constant velocity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

2.6 Motion with constant acceleration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

2.7 Free-fall under gravity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

3 Motion in 3 dimensions 32

3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

3.2 Cartesian coordinates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

3.3 Vector displacement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

3.4 Vector addition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

3.5 Vector magnitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

2
 3.6 Scalar multiplication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

3.7 Diagonals of a parallelogram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

3.8 Vector velocity and vector acceleration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

3.9 Motion with constant velocity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

3.10 Motion with constant acceleration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

3.11 Projectile motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

3.12 Relative velocity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

4 Newton’s laws of motion 53

4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

4.2 Newton’s first law of motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

4.3 Newton’s second law of motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

4.4 Hooke’s law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

4.5 Newton’s third law of motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

4.6 Mass and weight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

4.7 Strings, pulleys, and inclines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

4.8 Friction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

4.9 Frames of reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

5 Conservation of energy 78

5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

5.2 Energy conservation during free-fall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

5.3 Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

5.4 Conservative and non-conservative force-fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

5.5 Potential energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

3
 5.6 Hooke’s law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

5.7 Motion in a general 1-dimensional potential . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

5.8 Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

6 Conservation of momentum 107

6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

6.2 Two-component systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

6.3 Multi-component systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

6.4 Rocket science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

6.5 Impulses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

6.6 Collisions in 1-dimension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

6.7 Collisions in 2-dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

7 Circular motion 136

7.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

7.2 Uniform circular motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

7.3 Centripetal acceleration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

7.4 The conical pendulum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

7.5 Non-uniform circular motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

7.6 The vertical pendulum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

7.7 Motion on curved surfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

8 Rotational motion 160

8.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160

8.2 Rigid body rotation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160

8.3 Is rotation a vector? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

4
 8.4 The vector product . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166

8.5 Centre of mass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168

8.6 Moment of inertia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

8.7 Torque . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

8.8 Power and work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

8.9 Translational motion versus rotational motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186

8.10 The physics of baseball . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186

8.11 Combined translational and rotational motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

9 Angular momentum 204

9.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

9.2 Angular momentum of a point particle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

9.3 Angular momentum of an extended object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206

9.4 Angular momentum of a multi-component system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

10 Statics 217

10.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

10.2 The principles of statics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

10.3 Equilibrium of a laminar object in a gravitational field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220

10.4 Rods and cables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223

10.5 Ladders and walls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226

10.6 Jointed rods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228

11 Oscillatory motion 237

11.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

11.2 Simple harmonic motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

5
 11.3 The torsion pendulum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

11.4 The simple pendulum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242

11.5 The compound pendulum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245

11.6 Uniform circular motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246

12 Orbital motion 253

12.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253

12.2 Historical background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253

12.3 Gravity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262

12.4 Gravitational potential energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265

12.5 Satellite orbits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268

12.6 Planetary orbits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269

13 Wave motion 279

13.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279

13.2 Waves on a stretched string . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279

13.3 General waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284

13.4 Wave-pulses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285

13.5 Standing waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289

13.6 The Doppler effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

6
1 INTRODUCTION

1 Introduction

1.1 Major sources:

The sources which I consulted most frequently whilst developing this course are:

Analytical Mechanics: G.R. Fowles, Third edition (Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, New
York NY, 1977).
Physics: R. Resnick, D. Halliday, and K.S. Krane, Fourth edition, Vol. 1 (John Wiley
& Sons, New York NY, 1992).
Encyclopædia Brittanica: Fifteenth edition (Encyclopædia Brittanica, Chicago IL,
1994).
Physics for scientists and engineers: R.A. Serway, and R.J. Beichner, Fifth edition,
Vol. 1 (Saunders College Publishing, Orlando FL, 2000).

1.2 What is classical mechanics?

Classical mechanics is the study of the motion of bodies (including the special
case in which bodies remain at rest) in accordance with the general principles
first enunciated by Sir Isaac Newton in his Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Math-
ematica (1687), commonly known as the Principia. Classical mechanics was the
first branch of Physics to be discovered, and is the foundation upon which all
other branches of Physics are built. Moreover, classical mechanics has many im-
portant applications in other areas of science, such as Astronomy (e.g., celestial
mechanics), Chemistry (e.g., the dynamics of molecular collisions), Geology (e.g.,
the propagation of seismic waves, generated by earthquakes, through the Earth’s
crust), and Engineering (e.g., the equilibrium and stability of structures). Classi-
cal mechanics is also of great significance outside the realm of science. After all,
the sequence of events leading to the discovery of classical mechanics—starting
with the ground-breaking work of Copernicus, continuing with the researches of
Galileo, Kepler, and Descartes, and culminating in the monumental achievements

7
1 INTRODUCTION 1.2 What is classical mechanics?

of Newton—involved the complete overthrow of the Aristotelian picture of the

Universe, which had previously prevailed for more than a millennium, and its
replacement by a recognizably modern picture in which humankind no longer
played a privileged role.

In our investigation of classical mechanics we shall study many different types

of motion, including:

Translational motion—motion by which a body shifts from one point in space to

another (e.g., the motion of a bullet fired from a gun).
Rotational motion—motion by which an extended body changes orientation, with
respect to other bodies in space, without changing position (e.g., the motion
of a spinning top).
Oscillatory motion—motion which continually repeats in time with a fixed period
(e.g., the motion of a pendulum in a grandfather clock).
Circular motion—motion by which a body executes a circular orbit about another
fixed body [e.g., the (approximate) motion of the Earth about the Sun].

Of course, these different types of motion can be combined: for instance, the
motion of a properly bowled bowling ball consists of a combination of trans-
lational and rotational motion, whereas wave propagation is a combination of
translational and oscillatory motion. Furthermore, the above mentioned types of
motion are not entirely distinct: e.g., circular motion contains elements of both
rotational and oscillatory motion. We shall also study statics: i.e., the subdivision
of mechanics which is concerned with the forces that act on bodies at rest and
in equilibrium. Statics is obviously of great importance in civil engineering: for
instance, the principles of statics were used to design the building in which this
lecture is taking place, so as to ensure that it does not collapse.

8
1 INTRODUCTION 1.3 mks units

1.3 mks units

The first principle of any exact science is measurement. In mechanics there are
three fundamental quantities which are subject to measurement:

1. Intervals in space: i.e., lengths.

2. Quantities of inertia, or mass, possessed by various bodies.
3. Intervals in time.

Any other type of measurement in mechanics can be reduced to some combina-

tion of measurements of these three quantities.

Each of the three fundamental quantities—length, mass, and time—is mea-

sured with respect to some convenient standard. The system of units currently
used by all scientists, and most engineers, is called the mks system—after the first
initials of the names of the units of length, mass, and time, respectively, in this
system: i.e., the meter, the kilogram, and the second.

The mks unit of length is the meter (symbol m), which was formerly the dis-
tance between two scratches on a platinum-iridium alloy bar kept at the Inter-
national Bureau of Metric Standard in Sèvres, France, but is now defined as the
distance occupied by 1, 650, 763.73 wavelengths of light of the orange-red spectral
line of the isotope Krypton 86 in vacuum.

The mks unit of mass is the kilogram (symbol kg), which is defined as the mass
of a platinum-iridium alloy cylinder kept at the International Bureau of Metric
Standard in Sèvres, France.

The mks unit of time is the second (symbol s), which was formerly defined in
terms of the Earth’s rotation, but is now defined as the time for 9, 192, 631, 770
oscillations associated with the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the
ground state of the isotope Cesium 133.

In addition to the three fundamental quantities, classical mechanics also deals

with derived quantities, such as velocity, acceleration, momentum, angular mo-

9
1 INTRODUCTION 1.4 Standard prefixes

mentum, etc. Each of these derived quantities can be reduced to some particular
combination of length, mass, and time. The mks units of these derived quantities
are, therefore, the corresponding combinations of the mks units of length, mass,
and time. For instance, a velocity can be reduced to a length divided by a time.
Hence, the mks units of velocity are meters per second:
[L]
[v] = = m s−1 . (1.1)
[T ]
Here, v stands for a velocity, L for a length, and T for a time, whereas the operator
[· · ·] represents the units, or dimensions, of the quantity contained within the
brackets. Momentum can be reduced to a mass times a velocity. Hence, the mks
units of momentum are kilogram-meters per second:
[M][L]
[p] = [M][v] = = kg m s−1 . (1.2)
[T ]
Here, p stands for a momentum, and M for a mass. In this manner, the mks units
of all derived quantities appearing in classical dynamics can easily be obtained.

1.4 Standard prefixes

mks units are specifically designed to conveniently describe those motions which
occur in everyday life. Unfortunately, mks units tend to become rather unwieldy
when dealing with motions on very small scales (e.g., the motions of molecules)
or very large scales (e.g., the motion of stars in the Galaxy). In order to help
cope with this problem, a set of standard prefixes has been devised, which allow
the mks units of length, mass, and time to be modified so as to deal more easily
with very small and very large quantities: these prefixes are specified in Tab. 1.
Thus, a kilometer (km) represents 103 m, a nanometer (nm) represents 10−9 m,
and a femtosecond (fs) represents 10−15 s. The standard prefixes can also be used
to modify the units of derived quantities.

10