2025 (Current Year) Faculty Courses Liberal arts and basic science courses Basic science and technology courses
Fundamentals of Mechanics 1 E
- Academic unit or major
- Basic science and technology courses
- Instructor(s)
- Osamu Jinnouchi
- Class Format
- Lecture (Face-to-face)
- Media-enhanced courses
- -
- Day of week/Period
(Classrooms) - 3-4 Tue
- Class
- E
- Course Code
- LAS.P101
- Number of credits
- 100
- Course offered
- 2025
- Offered quarter
- 1Q
- Syllabus updated
- Apr 1, 2025
- Language
- Japanese
Syllabus
Course overview and goals
The course teaches the fundamentals of particle motion starting with the equations that describe the motion of an object.
Mechanics is important for understanding nature, and is essential for the study of science, engineering, life sciences, and other specialized courses. Students will learn the physical laws of motion and their mathematical description. This will allow them to understand particle mechanics as well as find solutions to most general problems in mechanics.
Course description and aims
By completing this course, students will be able to:
1) Correctly understand the concepts of velocity, acceleration, force, momentum, angular momentum, torque, work, energy, etc., and mathematically describe them.
2) Correctly understand the laws of motion; the laws of conservation of momentum, angular momentum, and energy that are derived from the laws of motion; and solve actual physical problems by applying these laws.
3) Find mathematical solutions to problems in mechanics, expressed by the appropriate equations, and explain the physical meaning of said solutions.
Keywords
position, velocity, acceleration, momentum, force, laws of motion, law of conservation of momentum, free fall, simple harmonic motion, parabolic motion, work, kinetic energy, potential energy, law of conservation of energy, central force, angular momentum, torque, law of conservation of angular momentum, universal gravitation, Kepler’s laws
Competencies
- Specialist skills
- Intercultural skills
- Communication skills
- Critical thinking skills
- Practical and/or problem-solving skills
Class flow
Two-thirds of each class is devoted to fundamentals and the rest to advanced content or application. To allow students to get a good grasp of the course contents and practice problem solving skills, problems related to the contents of this course are provided in Exercises in Physics I.
Course schedule/Objectives
| Course schedule | Objectives | |
|---|---|---|
| Class 1 | Guidance, motion of masses, summary of mathematics used. | Explain position, velocity, and acceleration using vectors. |
| Class 2 | Newton’s three laws of motion (law of inertia, equation of motion, law of action and reaction). | Explain Newton’s three laws of motion and describe motion using the equations of motion. |
| Class 3 | Vibration motion (single vibration, single pendulum, coupled pendulum, damped harmonic oscillation, and driven harmonic oscillation). | Explain the motion of a spring under the force of viscous resistance. |
| Class 4 | Motion in two dimensions (parabolic motion), motion with resistance, circular motion, relationship between motion and potential. | Find the elevation angle of the projectile to throw the object the longest distance in the air resistance. |
| Class 5 | Angular momentum and torque (vector product). | Explain the concepts of angular momentum and torque, and express them using the vector product. |
| Class 6 | Kepler's three laws, planetary motion, mathematical treatment of ellipses. | Derive the Newton's law of universal gravitation from Kepler's laws. |
| Class 7 | Kepler's Law (continued), Relation between planetary positions and potentials. | Derive Kepler's law from the nature of the central force. |
Study advice (preparation and review)
To enhance effective learning, students are encouraged to spend approximately 100 minutes preparing for class and another 100 minutes reviewing class content afterwards (including assignments) for each class.
They should do so by referring to textbooks and other course material.
Textbook(s)
"Classical Mechanics" Yuji Fukushima, Tadao Sugiyama, Kohdan-sha
Reference books, course materials, etc.
The lecture note PDF will be prepared, and uploaded to LMS.
References:
"Classical mechanics of the material point" Makoto Oka, Kyoritsu-shuppan
"The Feynman Lectures on Physics", Feynman, Leighton, Sands, Iwanami-shuppanb
Evaluation methods and criteria
Learning achievement is evaluated by a final exam.
Related courses
- LAS.P105 ： Exercises in Physics I
Prerequisites
No prerequisites.