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.
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 including rotating objects and systems where energy is dissipated.
Professor
Professor Brian Wilson
Professor Wilson Brian 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 focused more on pedagogy – how students learn. For the PHY180 course, Professor Wilson focuses on labs and the practical side of things, which is very important for preparing EngSci students for second year physics labs and potentially upper-year labs!
Interview
“[The pendulum lab] is not like a high school recipe, where you [must follow specific steps]. It’s much more like ‘these are your goals, and you must devise a strategy to get to these goals.’ The goals are basic science-y stuff like controlling variables, and then there’s also a big element of uncertainty.”
“What distinguishes science from philosophy is that [in science], every time you have this brilliant idea, you need to test it. Testing is the core of science […] I’m hoping to get towards the understanding from the engineers that when you trust that the scientists have figured something out and then implement it, it would be good if you understood what exactly scientists mean when they say ‘we understand something’”
Course 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 the fundamentals behind the motion of an object. 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 how to derive physics equations from first principle and then apply calculus and mathematical concepts to solve physics problems using those equations.
Week in the Life of a PHY180 Student
Classes
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 one another. Most lectures will involve derivations and theory. If you understand the derivation techniques used and apply the theory learned, you will implement your knowledge more effectively during independent study and when taking assessments.
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.
While there are no dedicated tutorial slots for this course, you will get to interact with your TAs during practical sessions. Practicals are weekly two-hour sessions run by TAs. During the first hour, you will solve midterm-level questions in groups using topics discussed in lecture. This is great preparation for the midterms and finals and allows you to integrate all concepts you learned so far! The second hour is Q&A time for students to ask questions about the content and the pendulum project, which is your main assignment throughout the course.
Assessments
There is typically one main assignment. The Pendulum project is a term-long experiment focusing on analyzing its harmonic motion. It involves building an oscillating pendulum at home, recording data from observing its motion, analyzing its amplitude over time, and improving the accuracy of your setup and methods. This culminates in a series of 2 intermediate lab reports and 1 final report. This project gives you good exposure to setting up experiments with minimal assistance, observing results by controlling variables and finally 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. And while the report submissions are spaced out throughout the semester, make sure you allocate sufficient time on a weekly basis to work on it to avoid cramming at the end!
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. There are two term tests. Use these as checkpoints to test that you are staying on top of the material. Each test only has a few questions, but they are 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 of a system is equal to the sum of its kinetic energy (motion energy) and potential energies (e.g., gravitational and elastic potential energy; potential energy from height and in a spring, respectively).
Angular Momentum: L = mrv\sin\theta – Angular momentum L is the momentum of an object moving in a rotational path of radius r.
Hooke’s Law: F = -k\Delta x – Hooke’s law, which states that the deformation in a spring is directly proportional to the deforming force. And the constant of proportionality is the stiffness of the material, K, better known as the spring constant. Fun fact, everything from concrete to glass has a spring constant!
More Details
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.
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. Classical mechanics is arguably the oldest science ever taught, so there exist tons of resources that can help you learn.
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.
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. However, you won’t be allowed to bring anything into the exam.
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.
Problems will often present you with information about a system of objects in motion and ask you to find a particular variable. If you are struggling to determine which equation to use to find this variable, it’s helpful to list all known and unknown information from the question in the solution space first. This will allow you to run through the equations in your head and find the most relevant ones to use. This is especially helpful during term tests and the final exam to break down complex problems into simpler steps and solve them faster.
Deriving equations from first principles may be new for some of you, compared to what you have seen in high school physics. Since there are a limited number of them covered in PHY180, it may be tempting to memorize them step-by-step. However, it will benefit you more in upper year courses if you take the time now to understand the thought process and techniques behind these derivations rather than committing them to memory.
Beyond First Year
- 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 modeling. 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!
- The materials covered here will serve as the basis for several 2nd year EngSci courses such as PHY293 and AER210 as well as upper year courses in the Aerospace Engineering, Engineering Physics and the Robotics Engineering majors.