Introduction

About 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 textbook with animations, demos, interactive elements 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 by providing demos, interactive elements and exercises next to the lectures

This book is based on Mudde & Rieger 2025. That book was already beyond introductory level and presumed 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. Moreover, we included in the Appendix an oversight of the relevant math concepts. Hence, this book should be considered a stand-alone new version. Note that we made good use of other open educational resources, several exercises stem from such resources. Where we use external materials, we acknowledge and credit the original sources.

How to study¶

It is tempting to read this book, and we encourage you to do so. But in order to really understand what is happening, how physics works, this is not enough. Reading provides a first start only. It is advisable to redo calculations and derivations, where we might skip some of the mathematical steps, you may want to verify these missing steps. Moreover, we included various examples and their solutions. It helps when you do the exercises yourselves first and then compare your answers to the solutions that we provide.

Notes on pdf¶

We included a pdf version of the book. However, not all functionality can be converted automatically. Moreover, there are known limitations to formatting and styling, especially with exercises and admonitions. We see it as a courtesy that we provide a pdf where you can make annotations, (re)do calculations etc. but our main focus is on the digital version.

Special features¶

In this book you will find some ‘special’ features. Some of these are indicated by their own formatting:

We also include interactive exercises made with Grasple. These exercises provide immediate feedback on your answers, allowing you to learn from your mistakes and deepen your understanding of the material. Here is an example exercise:

New concepts, such as Free body diagram, are introduced with a hover-over. If you move your mouse over the italicized part of the text, you will get a short explanation.

You have the opportunity to download some of the materials as Jupyter Notebook file and play with the code offline. We advise you to use Jupyter Lab in combination with MyST.

Building this book locally¶

You can build this book locally. See the instructions in the README file.

Feedback¶

This is the first version (second cycle) of this book. Although many have worked on it and several iterations have been made, there might still be issues. Do you see a mistake? Do you have suggestions for exercises? Are parts missing or abundant? Tell us! You can use the Feedback button in the top right of the screen. You will need a (free) GitHub account to report an issue!

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.

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. Also thanks to Vebe Helmes, Alexander Lopes-Cardozo, Sep Schouwenaar, Alesja Zorina, Winston de Greef and Boas Bakker for their comments and suggestions.

Colophon¶

Classical Mechanics and Relativity for Starters
by Robert Mudde, Bernd Rieger, and Freek Pols

@book{MuddeRiegerPols2025,
  author    = {Robert F. Mudde and Bernd Rieger and Freek Pols},
  title     = {Classical Mechanics \& Special Relativity for Starters},
  year      = {2026},
  publisher = {TU Delft OPEN Publishing | Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands},
  note      = {CC BY},
  doi       = {TODO},
  url       = {https://interactivetextbooks.tudelft.nl/mecharela}, 
  keywords  = {Mechanics; Physics; Special relativity; Science Education; University physics;  }
}

Keywords¶

Mechanics; Physics; Special relativity; Science Education; University physics;

Copyright statement¶

© 2026 Delft University of Technology. Written by Robert Mudde, Bernd Rieger, Freek Pols

This book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License unless stated otherwise.

• Source files are available for download using the button on the top right - or through the gitlab repo.

• Cover design made by Freek Pols inspired by the work of 3Blue1Brown developer Grant Sanderson.

• All vector images have been made by Hanna den Hertog, and are available in vector format through the repository. For reuse, adapting and redistribution, adhere to the CC-BY licences.

• Embedded several clips from 3Blue1Brown are in accord with their licences requirements.

• The embedded vpython apps are made freely available from trinket.

• Videos from NASA are included, where we adhere to their regulations.

• At various places pictures from the public domain are used. We comply to the regulations with regard to references.

• The Intermezzos on the lives of various scientists and the efforts behind key physical discoveries, are composed by drawing from a range of different sources. Rather than directly reproducing any one account, these stories have been reworked into a narrative that fits the context and audience of this book.

Copyright clearance was made by the TU Delft Library copyright team.

Copyright disclaimer:
Every attempt has been made to ensure the correct source of images and other potentially copyrighted material was ascertained (including a check on copyrights infringements by the Copyright Information Point of TU Delft Library), and that all materials included in this book have been attributed and used according to their license. If you believe that a portion of the material infringes someone else’s copyright, please contact c.f.j.pols@tudelft.nl

Published by¶

TU Delft OPEN Publishing | Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

DOI: https://doi.org/10.59490/xx.xxx

First edition.

This book is part of the collection of Interactive Open Textbooks of TU Delft OPEN Publishing | Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands.