Physics 325
Classical Mechanics I
Prof. Gregory J. MacDougall
Announcements
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- NEW We are done! See attached a copy of the final exam and the solution set. Exams will be graded tomorrow, and final grades for the course will be entered by Monday.
Wednesday, May 9, 2018
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- See the attached notice, which will be shown in lecture tomorrow and contains information relevant to the final exam next week. Please take a moment to read it- in particular the advice about how to best prepare. In addition to the homework and assignment and solutions sets for the course, the Homework page also contains two practice exams from previous years. Office Hours will continue as per usual this week to provide help with these exams, and ideas related to the course material.
Monday, April 30, 2018
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- Wednesday Office Hours are being relocated this week to room Loomis 204 (the Interaction Room).
Monday, April 23, 2018
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- Lecture notes for the final three classes have been posted. For those who have been keeping track of the syllabus and reading appropriate chapters of course texts, please note that this week's Thursday lecture will cover Hamiltonian mechanics (Taylor, Ch 13), while next week will briefly focus on oscillators (Taylor, Chapter 5; Morin, Chapter 4). The final lecture will be on Tuesday, May 1.
Sunday, April 22, 2018
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- Midterm 2 grades are now posted on Gradebook. Scores were a bit lower than last midterm, with a class average of 67%. Please take a few minutes to check the answer key below, and see where you may have made errors. I will present a question by question breakdown of scores next class. Exams will be returned to you in Discussion today. Monday, April 16, 2018
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- Click on links to see copies of the Midterm2 exam and solutions. Thursday, April 12, 2018
- Exams will be graded tomorrow, and your scores will be posted sometime this weekend.
- Reminder that Midterm 2 will be held in class this Thursday. Office Hours will be held as usual to help students with practice exams, with the exception of Thursday hours, which will be cancelled. Sunday, April 8, 2018
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- Reminder: there will be a special make-up Discussion session tomorrow, Monday, March 26 in Loomis 222 from 2-4pm to review material from Discussions 7 and 8. Please attend if you are unsure about these topics. Sunday, March 25, 2018
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- Note that Discussion sections are resuming at their regularly scheduled hours, starting tomorrow. Please attend class as per usual. Sunday, March 11, 2018
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Note that, due to multiple scheduling constraints, Tuesday Office Hours this week are to be rescheduled to Monday, 4-6pm in Loomis 173. There will also be a shift in the staffing personnel. The schedule for the week of March 5-9 only is as follows:
- Monday, 4-6pm, Loomis 143, Mindy Rak
- Wednesday, 5-7pm, Loomis 276, Yujie Zhang
- Thursday, 6-8pm, Loomis 222, Prof. MacDougall
As with last week, please download the Discussion 8 material posted online, and complete it either on your own or in Office Hours. We will gladly help you during Office Hours, if you encounter any difficulties. Saturday, March 3, 2018
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- Midterm 1 grades are now posted on Gradebook. Performance overall was extremely strong. Nearly half the class scored 80% or better. Well done! Please take a few minutes to check the answer key below, and see where you may have made errors. I will present a question by question breakdown of scores next class. Sunday, Feb. 25, 2018
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- As promised, copies of the Midterm1 exam and solutions are now posted. Thursday, Feb. 22, 2018
- Exams will be graded tomorrow, and your scores will be posted sometime this weekend.
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- Update on Office Hours for this week: office hours today (Wednesday) will be held at the regular time, but in Loomis 144 instead of the usual room. Office hours tomorrow (Thursday) are CANCELLED. Office hours will proceed according to the usual schedule next week. Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2018
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- It was brought to my attention today that the answer key for the Spring 2017 midterm contained the error, or rather, the axes that I drew in obtaining the answer was inconsistent with the answer I wrote down. (I mixed up my definition of x and y.) This has now been corrected. My apologies for the confusion. Tuessday, Feb. 20, 2018
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On a side note, last year's Midterm was long. Don't be frightened by the length.
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- Please note that Office Hours and Discussion will be held, as per usual, next week. Feel free to come to Office Hours and ask your TAs or me about course material or the practice exams. Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2018
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Due to a room booking conflict, the Office Hours on Feb 21 will now be held in Loomis 144.
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- Remember that there is a midterm next week! Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2018
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It will be in lecture on Feb.22. Be sure to come to class! See practice exams on the Homework page, and in particular the rules laid out on the first page of each. The slide posted last lecture is now included here.
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- Website is up! Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2018
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Please take a minute to read through the general course information on this page, which explains the course structure and policies on homework and grading. Also included is a link to the course syllabus, which provides a week-by-week breakdown of topics covered in this course and suggested reading. Specific information on office hours will be included in the coming days.
General Information
Course Description
- This course constitutes a core requirement for Physics majors or minors at the University of Illinois, and covers major topics from the field of classical mechanics. Topics covered include the kinematics and dynamics of classical systems, including a review of Newtonian kinematics and dynamics; three dimensional motion, variable mass, and conservation laws; damped and periodically driven oscillations; gravitational potential of extended objects and motion in rotating frames of reference; Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics.
Instructors
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Prof. Gregory MacDougall, MRL 216 → gmacdoug @ illinois.edu with "325" in the subject line
or call me at 300-0147
- Note- Due to construction in MRL, temporary office will be in MRL1022 for January and February, 2018.
TAs
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Graders
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For specific questions about homework grading, please simply email the entire grader email list, and the appropriate grader will respond.
Lecture
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Loomis 151, |
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1:00 - 2:20 pm |
Discussions
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Loomis 143, |
Monday evenings, one hour in the period 4:00-9:00pm. The exact time of your discussion will depend on the particular section for which you registered. |
Office hours
| Tuesday, | 3:00-5:00 pm, | Loomis 276, | Prof. MacDougall and Mengdi |
| Wednesday, | 4:00-7:00 pm, | Loomis 276, | Manthos and Yu |
| Thursday, | 6:00-8:00 pm, | Loomis 222, | Mindy and Yujie |
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Course Text Books
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"Classical Mechanics" by John R. Taylor
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"Introduction to Classical Mechanics" by David Morin
which is available
online @ UIUC Library; off-campus access needs VPN in Tunnel All mode
Syllabus
- See here.
Policies
Course Grade Breakdown
Homework will be 25% of the total grade, discussion attendance 5%, and exams will count for 70%. Two mid-term exams are worth 15% each, and the final exam is 40%.
Homework due dates and time
Homework assignments will be posted each week on Friday, and are due at 1:00 pm on the following Friday. Your solutions are to be deposited in the course homework box that is located on the second floor of Loomis Lab, at the entrance to the overpass to the Materials Research Lab (MRL) on the north side. Assignments which are late, but handed in by Monday at 1pm will lose 15%. Another 15% will be lost (30% total) for assignments submitted by Tuesday at 1pm. No late assignments will be accepted after Tuesday at 1pm! For assignments due within a week of a midterm exam, no late assignments will be accepted.
General Policy Regarding Grading
Homework is considered essential to learning course material, and should be treated as training for future work rather than as a test of what you already know. You should start working on an assignment early, close to when it is posted on Friday. We encourage students to work together, and get help from the professor or TAs when you encounter difficulties. We will happily explain difficult concepts during office hours and check your work for errors. For this reason, scores on homework are typically high (~95%). Don't make the mistake of starting your homework the day before it is due! (You know better.)
Partial credit will be given on homework and exams if and only if the work is coherent. A random scattering of thoughts will not be awarded points. Simple numerical errors will not be strongly punished, however students are expected to be careful about their work and will lose points for errors which give incorrect physical results. The steps to receiving partial credit are: (i) write your solution neatly and coherently using equations and words to describe what you are doing (ii) checking your answer for consistency e.g. are units correct? does the solution behave correctly in known limits? Write as though you are explaining the problem to somebody who doesn't already know the answer! Expect the exams to be challenging but to be curved accordingly.
Useful references
Formula Sheets
1D Formulae
3D Calculus
Useful results from Phys 225 (Courtesy of Prof. Naomi Makins)
6 Basic Pieces
The meaning of Grad, Div and Curl
Strategy for integration in three dimensions