We consider the goals of the introductory course in classical mechanics taken by physics majors and argue both that these goals are not well met in actual courses and that the goals themselves should be rethought. We propose alternative goals and describe an introductory “modern mechanics” course that addresses these alternative goals. Included in the description are several genres of homework problems that are nearly absent from traditional mechanics courses at both the introductory and intermediate levels. The intermediate mechanics course could be restructured to exploit a broader foundation laid by the introductory course.
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R. Chabay and B. Sherwood, Matter & Interactions. I. Modern Mechanics (Wiley, New York, 2002). See 〈http://www4.ncsu.edu/∼rwchabay/mi〉.
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Reference 2, Problem 3.1, p. 108.
5.
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7.
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Reference 2, Problem 2.17, p. 72.
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Reference 2, Problem 10.15, p. 381.
17.
The textbook is written in such a way that any computing environment preferred by the instructor can be used, but we recommend the use of the VPython language/programming environment. VPython is a particularly appropriate tool because of its support of vector computations and three-dimensional visualization. See 〈http://vpython.org〉. VPython is free, multi-platform, and open source.
18.
Reference 2, Problem 2.1, p. 66.
19.
Reference 2, Problem 2.2, p. 67.
20.
Reference 2, Problem 2.7, p. 68, and Problems 4.1–4.2, p. 158.
21.
Reference 2, Problem 3.4, p. 109, and Problem 5.1, p. 203.
22.
Reference 2, Problem 5.4, p. 204.
23.
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24.
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Although students work with relativistic momentum and energy, relativistic kinematics is left to a subsequent modern physics course. However, in a longer version of the course offered to physics majors at Purdue University, Mark Haugan weaves relativistic kinematics into his teaching of modern mechanics. See
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32.
Fred Reif (private communication) has pointed out that the elimination of the additive constant for potential energy because of the absolute rest energy associated with a particle is analogous to the elimination of the classical arbitrary additive constant for entropy because of the existence of lowest-energy ground states; entropy must go to zero at absolute zero.
33.
T.
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34.
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© 2004 American Association of Physics Teachers.
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