Catalog of Sites and Images

Lecture: Newtonian Physics

Don't Panic


The sites/images are mainly those of/from Wikipedia.

Sections

  1. Alphabetic Listing
  2. Lecture Listing


  1. Alphabetic Listing

    1. Images.

    2. anticyclone No images.

    3. Cambridge University Images.

    4. cat Images. Daredevil cats suffer from the high-rise syndrome for which there is a fun/sadistic video Why Cats Land on Their Feet.

        Air resistance saves the cats by causing them to come to a low terminal velocity.

    5. centrifugal force Images.

    6. cold welding No images.

    7. conservation of momentum No images.

    8. coriolis effect Images and animations.

    9. cyclone Images and animations.

    10. drag Images.

    11. friction no images.

    12. Greek alphabet Images.

    13. Guillaume Amontons No images.

    14. gravitational two-body problem Images and animations.

    15. Isaac Newton (1643--1727) Images.

    16. lunar eclipses Images and animations. The 2008feb20 eclipse

    17. Newton's laws of motion Images.

    18. Newtonian physics Images, but nothing great.

    19. normal force Images.

    20. orbit Images and animations.

    21. orbit of the Moon Images and animations.

    22. Principia Images. He wrote it in Latin under the impression that that would make it more accessible.

    23. sling Images.

    24. Westminster Abbey Images.

    25. whip Images.


  2. Lecture Listing

    1. Isaac Newton (1643--1727) Images.

    2. Cambridge University Images.

    3. George Washington had his cherry tree, (see cherry tree in Lebanon) and Newton had his apple tree (of which this is a descendant it's thought).

        The falling apple story is probably true since it came straight from the horse's mouth so to speak.

          "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the earth's centre."---William Stukely (1687--1765).

    4. Principia Images.

        In 1687, Newton published his Principia which summarized all his discoveries in what we would now call Newtonian physics.

        See Newton's own 1st edition Principia copy.

        He wrote it in Latin under the impression that that would make it more accessible.

        Latin can be translated.

        But Newton also unfortunately did his proofs in a form of geometrical calculus that he invented and that never caught on.

        Consequently, the Principia is really hard going for any modern person to read.

        Lots of shortcuts and improvements in formalism make many of the results Newton labored to prove then much easier to prove now.

        To illustrate how orbits arise Newton can up with Newton's Mountain as we now call it. Apparently, this doesn't appear in the Principia, in a later popularization The System of the World---but there is some unclarity in the online sources.

    5. Newton's reflector. It's a facsimile.

    6. Orbit Images and animations.

        Newtonian physics allowed Newton and us to understand Orbits.

        To illustrate how orbits arise Newton can up with Newton's Mountain as we now call it. Apparently, this doesn't appear in the Principia, in a later popularization The System of the World---but there is some unclarity in the online sources.

        The ideal case is two isolated bodies.

        They orbit about their mutual center of mass. See orbit animation.

        If one bodies is much more massive than the other, then it is effectively the center of mass: this is approximately true for the Sun-Earth system and more approximately true for the Earth-Moon system.

        See the Orbit of the Moon and the Earth-Moon orbit animation

    7. inertial frames Images, but nothing great.

        Newtonian physics must be referenced to inertial frames.

        Inertial frames are fundamentally unaccelerated frames and somehow are determined by the nature of space or in modern physics spacetime.

        Newtonian physics is still valid in non-inertial frames, but it's not referened to them.

        In non-inertial frames, one can have accelerations without a force---without real forces---there are these fictitious or inertial forces which are just the effects of being in a non-inertial frame.

        For example, the inertial forces, centrifugal force and the Coriolis force both of which appear in rotating frames.

        The centrifugal force is just the ``force'' that tries to throw you out of the rotating frame and Coriolis force is an effect of moving in the rotating frame.

        See the rotating parabolic disk animation which unfortunately is complicated by the parabolic shape of the disk for the bouncing particle---so four effects are going on at the same time centrifugal force, Coriolis force, gravitational force accelerating the particle, and collisions.

        On the left, one sees the system from a rest frame.

        On the right, one sees the system from the rotating frame.

        The particle actually collides with the same point on the surrounding wall all the time actually.