Elements of Newtonian Mechanics

Book excerpt: This book is intended as a textbook for an entry-level university course in Newtonian mechanics for students of physics, astronomy, and the engineering sciences. The material has been used as a first-semester text for first-year undergraduates at the Niels Bohr Institute, which is part of the University of Copenhagen. Our way of presenting Newtonian mechanics is influenced by the writings of the late Max Born. Also, the Feynman Lectures on Physics have been an important source of inspiration. In fact, the idea for the book came when we read Section 16.1 of Volume 1 of the Feynman Lectures. Ideas from the well-known Berkeley Physics Course may also be traced in the text. All of the books quoted in the literature list have, in one way or another, served as a source for our lectures for undergraduates. It is assumed that the students already have a rudimentary knowledge of Newtonian mechanics, say at the high-school level. Some background in vectors and elementary calculus is also required, i.e., the students should know how to add vectors as well as how to differentiate and integrate elementary functions. The Appendix contains the required background for the use of vectors in Newtonian mechanics.