The physics of cannonballs, planets, and pendulums.
Newton's legacy: forces, motion, and the machinery of the everyday world. Pendulums that keep perfect time, planets that sweep out equal areas, cannonballs that trace parabolas. The math is three hundred years old and still runs the world you live in.
MODULE 1 · KINEMATICS & NEWTON
MOTION IN A STRAIGHT LINE
Position, velocity, acceleration — the three questions that gave physics its language.
VECTORS AND PROJECTILE MOTION
How Galileo split one hard problem into two easy ones — and why a cannonball traces a parabola.
NEWTON'S THREE LAWS
The three sentences that still run the world.
FRICTION AND DRAG
The forces that quietly take the energy away — and, in doing so, run half of everyday physics.
CIRCULAR MOTION
Why the string always pulls inward — and why the Moon never stops falling.
NON-INERTIAL REFERENCE FRAMES
Why a carousel feels like a force — and why the wind turns right in the northern hemisphere.
MODULE 2 · CONSERVATION LAWS
ENERGY AND WORK
Work, kinetic energy, and potential energy.
MOMENTUM AND COLLISIONS
Elastic, inelastic, and the center of mass.
ANGULAR MOMENTUM
Spinning skaters and bicycle wheels.
NOETHER'S THEOREM
Symmetry and conservation are the same thing.
MODULE 3 · ROTATION & RIGID BODIES
TORQUE AND ROTATIONAL DYNAMICS
Forces that turn instead of push.
MOMENT OF INERTIA
Why a hollow sphere rolls slower than a solid one.
GYROSCOPES AND PRECESSION
Why a top doesn't fall.
THE WOBBLING EARTH
Precession, nutation, and the long memory of the planet.
ROLLING MOTION
What a wheel does that a puck can't — and why a hollow cylinder loses every race.
MODULE 4 · OSCILLATIONS
THE SIMPLE PENDULUM
Why every clock that ever ticked ticked the same way.
BEYOND SMALL ANGLES
What the pendulum hides when you stop making approximations.
OSCILLATORS EVERYWHERE
The equation that runs half of physics.
DAMPED & DRIVEN OSCILLATIONS
Why every real oscillator dies — and why, if you push it just right, it tries to kill you back.
MODULE 5 · WAVES
THE WAVE EQUATION
The equation that runs every wave there is.
STANDING WAVES AND MODES
Why guitar strings only sing certain notes.
DOPPLER AND SHOCK WAVES
What changes when the source moves.
DISPERSION AND GROUP VELOCITY
When different frequencies travel at different speeds.
MODULE 6 · ORBITAL MECHANICS
THE LAWS OF PLANETS
How a German astronomer broke the sky open with three sentences.
UNIVERSAL GRAVITATION
The force that holds the Moon is the force that drops the apple.
ENERGY IN ORBIT
One equation tells you the speed at every point in space.
TIDES AND THE THREE-BODY PROBLEM
When gravity gets complicated, the universe gets interesting.
MODULE 7 · FLUIDS
PRESSURE AND BUOYANCY
Why some things float.
BERNOULLI'S PRINCIPLE
Faster fluids push less.
VISCOSITY AND REYNOLDS NUMBER
Honey, water, and the line between them.
TURBULENCE
The last unsolved problem of classical physics.
MODULE 8 · LAGRANGIAN & HAMILTONIAN
THE PRINCIPLE OF LEAST ACTION
Nature picks the laziest path.
THE LAGRANGIAN
Mechanics rewritten as energy minus energy.
THE HAMILTONIAN
Position and momentum, two halves of the same thing.
PHASE SPACE
The space where every possible motion lives.