Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?
Aristotle: It is the nature of chickens to cross roads.
Isaac Newton: Chickens at rest tend to stay at rest, chickens in motion tend to cross roads.
Albert Einstein: Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road moved beneath the chicken depends on your frame of reference.
Werner Heisenberg: We are not sure which side of the road the chicken was on, but it was moving very fast.
Wolfgang Pauli: There already was a chicken on this side of the road.
Photo by Sunder Muthukumaran on Unsplash
Welcome, young physicist! Classical mechanics is one of the most fundamental topics in physics, and this course will set you up for success in your upper years. Everything from flying planes to walking robots can be explained through concepts taught in PHY180.
The goal of PHY180 is to teach you about the equations and principles used to model a variety of real-world situations. For example, you might model the flight of a rocket to determine its energy and velocity at a given time. You’ll also use tools from other courses, like differential and integral calculus from ESC194, to model more advanced systems as you progress throughout the course.
Professors
This year, PHY180 will be taught by Professor William Trischuk and Professor Brian Wilson.
William Trischuk
Professor Trischuk is an experimental particle physicist. He completed his Bachelor’s degree in Physics at McGill and PhD in Particle Physics at Harvard. Currently, he is a professor in the Department of Physics at U of T. He is also part of the Atlas Experiment Group at CERN, where he is part of a team that is focusing on building new particle detectors.
Brian Wilson
Professor Wilson is an assistant professor, teaching stream, in the Department of Physics. His focus is on general relativity, looking into exact numerical solutions. Since 2018, his research has been focused more on pedagogy – how students learn. For the PHY180 course, Professor Wilson focuses on labs and the practical side of things, which is super important for preparing EngSci students for second year and potentially upper-year labs!
Professor Interviews
Interview with Professor Wilson
Interview with Professor Trischuk
Highlights
- Labs are a great opportunity to connect the math and theory of the course with the real world. You’ll quickly see that the equations taught in the course can model the world around us.
- This course will teach you all about learning the fundamentals. Soon, you’ll be able to simplify many complicated physics problems to the basic equations taught in this course.
- Learning physics from a more mathematical approach! You’ll learn to apply calculus and mathematical concepts to solve physics problems.
Week in the Life of a PHY180 Student
Lectures
This course has a total of three hours of lectures a week. They will cover concepts such as Newton’s three laws, kinematics, forces, oscillations, momentum, angular momentum, and energy.
The best tip for PHY180 lectures is ensuring you understand each fundamental idea before moving on to the next one since the concepts in the course will continue to build upon each other. Most lectures will involve derivations and theory. If you are able to understand the derivation techniques used and apply the theory learned, you will implement your knowledge more effectively during independent study and when taking assesments.
For some of you, the content covered in lectures may be a review of high school physics. Nevertheless, it is still important that you pay attention to lectures and take notes because the derivations are likely more advanced than what you have seen in the past. For those who have not seen the content before, do not worry: the course starts from the basics and everything is derived from first principles.
Tutorials
There are no dedicated tutorial slots for this course.
Practicals
You will get to interact with your TAs during practical sessions. Practicals are weekly two-hour sessions. The first hour is where you solve midterm-level questions in groups using topics discussed in lecture. This is great preparation for the midterms and finals tand allows you to integrate all of the concepts you learned so far! The second hour features Q&A time for students to ask questions about course topics and the pendulum project which is your main assignment throughout the course.
Assignments
There is typically one main assignment The pendulum project is a term-long experiment that focuses on analyzing the harmonic motion of a pendulum. In past years, students have built an oscillating pendulum at home, analyzed the different characteristics of the system and improved the accuracy of their setup if necessary. This culminated in a series of three intermediate lab reports. This project gives you good exposure to writing lab reports and communicating your results, which is great preparation for all the labs you will do in second year!
You may be asked to build another simple physical set-up like the oscillating pendulum this year. However, it is important to note that the pendulum project is relatively time consuming, so make sure you allocate sufficient time for completing it to avoid cramming!
Problem Sets
PHY180 features weekly problem sets that require you to use and derive equations based on course concepts. The questions usually focus on concepts learned that week. They may also incorporate content from previous parts of the course.
Exams
PHY180 has two term tests. Use these as checkpoints to test that you are staying on top of the material. Each test has only a couple of questions. Test questions are often more challenging than textbook questions and require you to connect concepts from different parts of the course. They are almost all computation-based and can involve advanced mathematical derivations.
Find past PHY180 exams in the Skule exam repository.
How to Succeed?
Quick Advice and Equations
Energy: E = \frac{1}{2}mv^2 + mgh + \frac{1}{2}kx^2 – Total mechanical energy is the sum of kinetic energy and potential energies, from height and energy stored in a spring.
Angular Momentum: L = mrv\sin\theta – The momentum of an object moving in a rotational path.
Hooke’s Law: F = -k\Delta x – The deformation of a spring is directly proportional to the deforming force.
More Details
Keep up with the coursework
PHY180 moves quickly, so make sure you keep up with the material. Ask professors, TAs, upper years, or your peers if you are confused about a certain topic. Because the material builds on itself, it is important to cement your understanding as concepts are being taught. If you have holes in your understanding, it will be difficult to learn new concepts well.
Understand “why?”
While we encourage you to know the equations and how they work together, we also want to stress that knowing why something works is also very useful in classical mechanics. If you can understand how the concepts work on a theoretical level, you are better prepared to answer more difficult, concept-focused questions than you would be otherwise. In our experience, the best way to achieve this understanding is to ask questions about why these concepts work wherever possible. Asking these questions in lectures, tutorials, office hours, and on Piazza will help build your understanding of what these concepts really mean.
Practice questions strategically
Mastering the theory behind problems will require a lot of practice. As you do more questions, your understanding of the material will improve, and you’ll model situations with fewer mistakes.
The midterm and exam will have no “easy” questions, so there is no point in repeating problems you can easily do! We suggest making a list throughout the semester of questions you struggle with. Then, before the term tests and exam, work through the questions. Try to do them without looking at the answers to ensure you know how to solve the problems.
Be comfortable with the equations and how to use them
This course has a lot of equations, and many of them can only be used in very specific conditions. We recommend making a list of equations—and when to use them—as you go through the semester. Seeing them in an organized way will help you memorize the trickier ones and remember how they connect. In the past, students have also been able to bring their own equation sheet into the final exam.
Draw Questions Out
Before jumping into calculations for a physics problem, sketch out the situation and draw a Free Body Diagram (FBD). This will help you understand the problem and keep track of system components.
You may be able to solve some physics problems mentally. However, PHY180 problems can get quite complex, especially when you need to consider different time intervals. With a simplified diagram, you can connect physics concepts to a system without needing to remember every part of it. After you’ve visualized the problem using diagrams, you can focus on identifying and solving for your unknowns.
Additionally, diagrams can help assessors understand your solution, as they have a visual aid to guide them through your calculations.
Use other resources like videos, textbooks, and practice problems
Classical mechanics is arguably the oldest science course ever taught. There are thousands of videos and textbooks covering course topics. If you’re having difficulty with the textbook, or you can’t follow something from the lectures, try another resource! There is definitely something out there matching your learning style.
What Will You Take Out of It?
- Classical mechanics is the root of most other science and engineering fields. The equations and concepts you learn in this course will become second nature by the time you graduate. Understanding these concepts is necessary to progress through engineering, and for success in later courses during your degree.
- One classic problem-solving technique in physics is modelling. This course will teach you how to model a situation and how to apply the equations to solve for what you need. Many other courses you take will use this technique!