Elementary Classical Mechanics

This book consists of material for a one term course in classical mechanics presented to first year mathematics majors at the University of Bristol. Unlike the undergraduate mathematics curriculum in the United States, the United Kingdom has a rich tradition of teaching classical mechanics (among other courses that might be viewed as `'theoretical physics'') at the undergraduate level. (This should not be too surprising since, after all, Isaac Newton did invent calculus, in part, to describe mechanical phenomena). I have always found this a very enjoyable course to teach, but a bit challenging. The class tends to be large, it is a requirement for all first year mathematics students, and the students have varied backgrounds. Some have had a basic course in mechanics, some have not. Almost all have a good background in calculus, but I generally need to assume minimal background in differential equations and linear algebra. Moreover, this needs to be a mathematics course, not a physics or engineering type mechanics course. So I have made the decision that there will be (essentially) no free body diagrams.

The result is this book. The goal is to give students some exposure to the beautiful subject of classical mechanics at a level that will `'mesh'' with their other first year mathematics courses and give them the prerequisites (and hopefully tempt them to take) more advanced courses in classical, quantum, and statistical mechanics offered in the second and third years.

This book was typeset with the Tufte latex package. I am grateful to Edward R. Tufte for putting his beautiful design ideas in this Latex book package.