Classical Mechanics and Special Relativity (FYTB14)

Welcome to

Classical Mechanics and Special Relatvity, 7.5 credits

given by the Department of Physics.

Note: this page contains general information about the course. If you are a student on the course you have to log in to the canvas portal to the left. The course calendar and course stream on this page are not active.

Content

In this course, we will discuss how to understand classical mechanics  in a systematic way by learning about the Lagrange and Hamilton formalism. These give us many tools to derive equations of motion for mechanical systems. We will also dive into the foundations and mathematical structure of special relativity. The detailed course goals can be found in the course plans (see below).

General information

• Semester: ​autumn
• Study period: ​1
• Level: ​bachelor
• Language: English
• Assessment: (add info)
• Grading scale: U-G-VG
• Course plan: in English and in Swedish
• Course coordinator: Malin Sjödahl  email: malin.sjodahl@fysik.lu.se 

Course literature

Classical Mechanics part:

• Course book: John R. Taylor, Classical Mechanics (ISBN 978-1-891389-22-1), University Science Books, 2005.
• Additional literature: There are many good books on classical mechanics in the library, and we encourage you to look at some of them.

Special relativity part:

• Course book: W. Rindler, Introduction to Special Relativity (ISBN: 0-19-853952-5), Oxford Science Publications, 1991
• Again, you can find many books about special relativity.

Course structure

The course consists of classroom lectures and exercise sessions.

There will also be a compulsory mini-project part, where you study a subject in small groups of students, and then present it to the other students (and the lecturers) at one of two afternoons of presentations. Different groups will study and present different topics, and give feedback to each other after their respective presentation.

Schedule

Normally there are lectures on Mondays and Wednesdays, 10-12, and exercises Fridays 9-12. The mandatory introduction meeting ht 2024 is (preliminarily) planned for September 2nd at 10.15.

Application

Apply to the course at antagning.se. Links to an external site.

Read more about the course and how to apply via below links. Please note: to see if the course is open for application, always check the Swedish web page.

• Read about the course FYTB14 on Lund University's central website (in English).
• Read about the course FYTB14 on Lund University's central website (in Swedish).

Read more

• All courses offered by the Department of Physics (on fysik.lu.se).
• Degree project page on Canvas.
• Course evaluations.