Lecture 7 | Modern Physics: Classical Mechanics (Stanford)

Lecture 7 of Leonard Susskind's Modern Physics course concentrating on Classical Mechanics. Recorded November 26, 2007 at Stanford University.

This Stanford Continuing Studies course is the first of a six-quarter sequence of classes exploring the essential theoretical foundations of modern physics. The topics covered in this course focus on classical mechanics. Leonard Susskind is the Felix Bloch Professor of Physics at Stanford University.

Complete playlist for the course:
http://youtube.com/view_play_list?p=189C0DCE90CB6D81

Stanford Continuing Studies: http://continuingstudies.stanford.edu/

About Leonard Susskind: http://www.stanford.edu/dept/physics/people/faculty/susskind_leonard.html

Stanford University channel on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/stanford

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• relativity
• equation
• formula

[beenpimped31]

I love classical mechanics, this class was one of my favorite and most exciting classes as an undergrad.

[Ferrus91]

Still questions about friction! Gah!

[mar77a]

@mar77a Nvm that, the whole L = T-V thing is a mnemonic. I was just reading about this in Shankar and the EM Lagrangian he uses is correct. For more info check "R. Shankar - Principles of QM, page 83".

[mar77a]

At about 1:43, he actually gets -Bx and -By. My guess is that when he set up the Lagrangian he put +V instead of -V for the potential, in this case magnetic vector potential. So he ends up with -(v x B) instead of (v x B).

It'll be nice if someone can confirm this.

[grunder20]

Thumbs up Susskind!

[qftftw]

@MichaelKovarik He's not talking about localizing a particle's position in space, but its simultaneous position and momentum in phase space. A minimum phase space area of hbar implies delta p * delta q >= hbar, which is basically just a geometric interpretation of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Why he writes hbar instead of hbar / 2 for the area is unclear to me, but it may just be a simplification.

[Braskass]

I am studying Physics in Germany and this lecture helped me a lot! I can't find any electrodynamics Lecture. He didn't give one? :(

[insparato]

avocadomilk: No, he means divergence. Divergence gives you a scalar, you're doing the dot product of of del and a vector hence scalar. Gradient gives you a vector.

[avocadomilk2010]

round about 39mins, he really means the gradient, not divergence no? divergence results in a vector, while he's got a scalar there.

[MichaelKovarik]

I have been trying to look for sources to back up Susskind's claim that a quantum particle cannot be localized into a region with an area of the reduced Planck's constant, 1.05(10^-34) Joule-seconds. However, I couldn't find anything to back it up. Can any of you show me sources to back up his claim?