Physics 1A Spring 2001: Newtonian Mechanics

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)

Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727)

Physics 1A Spring 2001: Lectures and WWW links

Healthy Diversions in Physics:

Bored with lecture notes? Want to deepen your understanding of the concepts without ploughing through problem calculations? Try these sites (more added weekly):

Amusement Park Physics, including design-your-own roller-coaster online. Learn "the forces behind the fun".

Physics 1A Lectures

Lecture notes will be posted in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format, usually on Wednesday evening. They are posted as a convenience only, not as a substitute for your own notes! Unfortunately, some of the files may be large (~1 Mbyte) and may take several minutes to download over slow connections.

Week 1:

Lecture 1 - Introduction, goals of Physics
Lecture 2 - Distance/Time graphs; speed = Rate of change of Position.
Lecture 3 - Position = Integral of Speed. Relative Speeds.
Lecture 4 - Acceleration in 1-D

Week 2: Kinematics, Acceleration

Lecture 5 - Reading Quiz 1, Motion in 2D - vectors. (See also the interactive demonstration on the Hecht CD).
Vector Addition Applet
Lecture 6 - Vector velocity and acceleration, inertial frames, free-fall in 1-D.
Lecture 7 - Free-fall in 2D - projectile motion. (See also the interactive demonstration on the Hecht CD)
Newton's Cannon Java animation, with link to Newton's original diagram and explanation.
NASA's KC-135 "Vomit Comet" - flies in a parabolic trajectory to provide 25s of a weightless environment for astronaut training. A CNN article with images and movies.
Superman - the Escape ride at Magic Mountain provides thrill-seekers with 6.5s of free-fall. So how high is the tower? How fast are you moving at the bottom?. (The required height of the tower, and the braking mechanism to slow the coaster will both add to the cost of building such a ride).
Remember: v_y= dy/dt = 0.0 - gt so y=y₀ - 1/2gt².
The world's tallest free-fall tower is in Hokkaido, Japan, and provides 10.0s of free-fall time. (Therefore, it must be (10.0s/6.5s)² times the height of the Superman ride, and the speed at the bottom must be (10.0s/6.5s) times greater). It is used for zero-gravity experiments, cheaper than sending them into orbit.

Week 3: Newton's Laws of Motion

Lecture 8 - Reading quiz, Newton's First Law, Inertia, Momentum
Lecture 9 - Force as agent of change, Newton's 3rd Law.
Why can't this man lift himself off the ground?
Lecture 10 - Dynamics and Statics, inclined planes.

Week 4: Friction, work, energy and power

Lecture 11 - Reading quiz, friction
Lecture 12 - Work, Kinetic Energy
Lectire 13 - Potential Energy, Conservation of Energy, Power

Week 5: Impulse, Momentum, Collisions

Lecture 14 - Reading Quiz, Impulse
Lecture 15 - Impulse/Momentum vs. Work/Energy, Collisions, Elastic collisions
Lecture 16 - Inelastic collisions and "un-collisions"

Week 6: Centripetal force, gravity

Lecture 17 - Reading Quiz, Centripetal acceleration
Lecture 18 - Vertical circular motion, gravitation
Lecture 19 - Circular orbits

Week 7: Rotation

Lecture 20 - Reading Quiz, Angular motion.
Lecture 21 - Torque, center of gravity, stability, moment of inertia.
Lecture 22 - Rotational motion, energy, angular momentum.

Week 8: Fluids and Solids

Lecture 23 - Reading Quiz, States of Matter, fluid pressure.
Lecture 24 - Hydrostatics, buoyancy (Archimedes principle).
Lecture 25 - Pascal's principle/hydraulic lever, Hooke's law, strain and strength.

Week 9: SImple Harmonic Motion

Lecture 26 - SHM: displacement, speed, acceleration.
Lecture 27 - SHM: energy, pendulum, damping, resonance.

Week 10: Waves and Sound

Lecture 28 - Reading Quiz, wave properties.
Lecture 29 - Sound Waves.
Lecture 30 - Course Review I

Physics 1A

Philip Blanco email: pblanco@ucsd.edu