Abstract¶
This book provides an introduction for freshman students into the world of classical mechanics and special relativity theory. Much of physics is build on the basic ideas from classical mechanics. Hence an early introduction to the topic can be beneficial for new students. However, at the start of studying physics, lots of the required math is not available yet. That means that all kind of concepts that are very useful can not be invoked in the lectures and teaching. That does not have to be a disadvantage. It can also be used to help the students by introducing some math and coupling it directly to the physics, making more clear why mathematics should be studied and what its ‘practical use’ is. With this book, we aim to introduce new students directly at the start of their studies into the world of physics, more specifically the world of Newton, Galilei and many others who laid the foundation of physics. We aim to help students getting a good understanding of the theory, i.e. the framework of physics. What is ‘work’ and why do we use it? Why is kinetic energy and not or ? Both 3’s are fundamentally wrong, but what is behind it?
1About this book¶
Classical mechanics is the starting point of physics. Over the centuries, via Newton’s three fundamental laws formulated around 1687, we have built a solid framework describing the material world around us. On these pages, you will find a text book with animations, demos and exercises for studying introductory classical mechanics. Moreover, we will consider the first steps of Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity published 1905.
This material is made to support first year students from the BSc Applied Physics at Delft University of Technology during their course Classical Mechanics and Relativity Theory, MechaRela for short. But, of course, anybody interested in Classical Mechanics and Special Relativity is more than welcome to use this book.
With this e-book our aim is to provide learning material that is:
- self-contained
- easy to modify and thus improve over the years
- interactive, provide additional demos and exercises next to the lectures
This book is based on Mudde & Rieger 2025. That book was already beyond introductory level and pressumed a solid basis in both calculus and basic mechanics. All texts in this book were revised, additional examples and exercises were included, picture and drawings have been updated and interactive materials have been included. Hence, this book should be considered a stand-alone new version, though good use has been made by open educational resources.
1.1Special features¶
In this book you will find some ‘special’ features. Some of these are emphasized by their own style:
New concepts, such as Free body diagram, are introduced with a hoover-over. If you move your mouse over the italicized part of the text, you will get a short explanation.
1.2Feedback¶
Do you see a mistake, do you have suggestions for exercises, are parts missing or abundant. Tell us! You can use the feedback button at the top right button. You will need a (free) GitHub account to report an issue!
2Authors¶
- Prof.Dr. Robert F. Mudde, Department of Chemical Engineering, Delft University of Technology
- Prof.Dr. Bernd Rieger, Department of Imaging Physics, Delft University of Technology
- Dr. Freek Pols, Science & Engineering Education, Delft University of Technology
Special thanks to Hanna den Hertog for (re)making most of the drawings, Luuk Fröling for his technical support and Dion Hoeksema for converting the .js scripts to .py files.
2.1About the authors¶
Robert Mudde is Distinguished Professor of Science Education at the faculty of Applied Sciences of Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands.
Bernd Rieger is Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Professor in the Department of Imaging Physics at the faculty of Applied Sciences of Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands.
Freek Pols is an assistant professor in the Science & Engineering Education group at the faculty of Applied Sciences of Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands.
3Open Educational Resource¶
This book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. It is part of the collection of Interactive Open Textbooks of TU Delft Open.
This website is a Jupyter Book. MarkDown source files are available for download using the button on the top right.
The bar on the right of this page opens Hypothesis, a service that allows you to add comments to pieces of text in this book.
3.1Software and license¶
This website is a Jupyter Book. Markdown source files are available for download using the button on the top right.
This book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
3.2Images, videos, apps¶
The cover image is inspired by the work of 3blue1brown developer Grant Sanderson.
All vecor images have been made by Hanna den Hertog, and are available in vector format through the repository. For reuse, adapting and redistrution, adhere to the CC-BY-licences.
We embedded several clips from 3blue1brown in accord with their licences requirements.
The embedded vpython apps are made freely available from trinket.
Some videos from NASA are included, where we adhere to their regulations.
At various places we use pictures which are in the public domain. We comply to the regulations with regard to references.
3.3How to cite this book¶
R.F. Mudde, B. Rieger, C.F.J. Pols, Classical Mechanics & Special Relativity for Beginners,