Mechanics of Motion
Real mechanics of motion for talented high schoolers.
Online from anywhere · or in-person in Princeton, NJ
A World Through the Lens of Mechanics of Motion
Mechanics of Motion is one of the six classical core courses of the Physics Lyceum: High School curriculum, taught on the Deep Physics model that runs through the whole SoTS Physics Lyceum.
The course runs on theory, problem-solving sessions, homework, and practical laboratory work. The Lyceum provides the equipment, and tuition covers it.
1. Kinematics: Describing Motion
Position, velocity, and acceleration, before any talk of forces. Motion in one and two dimensions. Average and instantaneous velocity, acceleration, the constant-acceleration formulas. Projectile motion as two independent one-dimensional problems happening at the same time.
2. Newton’s Laws of Motion
Force, mass, and acceleration as a single equation. Newton’s three laws and what each one says. Forces as vectors. Inertial frames of reference. Friction, tension, normal force. Free-body diagrams as the universal tool for setting up any mechanics problem.
3. Energy and Work
A second way of looking at every problem in mechanics. Work done by a force. Kinetic energy and the work–energy theorem. Potential energy for gravity and springs. Conservation of energy and what it lets you skip when you use it well.
4. Momentum and Collisions
What survives a collision, and what does not. Linear momentum and impulse. Conservation of momentum for any closed system. Elastic and inelastic collisions in one and two dimensions. Center of mass and how it simplifies the problem. Reactive (rocket) motion: momentum conservation when mass is ejected.
5. Circular Motion and Universal Gravitation
From a stone on a string to the orbit of the Earth. Uniform circular motion: centripetal acceleration and the force that supplies it. Newton’s law of universal gravitation. Orbits, the three cosmic velocities (orbital, escape, and solar escape), and Kepler’s three laws of planetary motion. Tides, as what a gravitational field does when it pulls harder on the near side of a body than on the far side.
6. Frames of Reference
How the same motion looks different from a moving observer. Galilean relativity. Velocity addition between inertial frames. Non-inertial frames and the apparent forces, such as centrifugal and Coriolis, that they introduce. Why physics keeps the same form in any inertial frame.
The specific topics, and the depth given to each, may shift depending on class priorities and the dynamics of the cohort.