Welcome to Physics 8.01, MITs introductory course
in classical mechanics for first year undergraduates.
Im Deepto Chakrabarty.
And Im Peter Dourmashkin.
Were the faculty members in charge of this course.
The science of classical mechanics
establishes an important principle of cause and effect,
wherein the changes in a bodys motion
arise from the application of physical forces.
Newtons Laws of Motion established
the scientific principle of analyzing observed phenomenon
through the use of clearly articulated mathematical models
rather than through intuition.
These concepts are so important to the modern branches
of science and engineering that we
require all of our undergraduates at MIT
to take classical mechanics regardless of whatever course
they intend to specialize in.
In many high school level physics courses,
mechanics is taught as a set of formulas
to memorize for a series of standard situations.
Our course is different.
Here, you will learn a set of fundamental principles
that you can use to apply to unfamiliar situations
and analyze them rather than just situations
that you studied previously.
8.01 assumes a strong background in high school level physics
and mathematics.
We introduce and make extensive use of calculus as needed,
so a previous course in calculus is not a prerequisite.
However, it is a rigorous and technically challenging
course aimed at MIT undergraduates.
8.01s OpenCourseWare site contains a coherent set
of lessons that will take you through all the basic concepts
of classical mechanics as well as a set of advanced topics
including mass flow, simple harmonic motion,
and precessional motion.
In each of these lessons, you will
find a series of short lightboard videos
that will help you understand concepts,
mathematical derivations, and problems solving techniques.
In addition, you will find many other useful resources
including an online textbook, many worked example problems,
and MIT level problem sets.
Developing a command of mechanics
is a powerful tool for understanding the world
around us.
Welcome to 8.01.