Themes throughout the course
- Dimensional analysis.
Estimation.
- Conservation laws.
- Matrices. `Everything is a spring'.
- Successive approximation and perturbation expansions.
The main proposed changes compared with the 1998 course are
- Lagrangian and Hamiltonian dynamics introduced, gently.
- Normal modes are put first, rotating frames and rotating bodies later.
- Coverage of elasticity is reduced. No cantilevers.
- Coverage of rigid bodies is
reduced. Only qualitative treatment of free precession. Possibly
no Euler equations.