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Mechanics (2012) : A Course given at Univrsity of Hyderabad

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This course was offered in University of Hyderabad for students of Integrated Masters Program. The class had studnets with varying back ground in Mathematics. Many of the students had no previous exposure to differential and integral calculus. Even though this of students had gone through some mathematics as part of their 10th class  studies, there  was a two year period,  11th and 12th standard when did lost touch with most of the mathematics they had learned earlier. The other students has much better background in Physics and Mathematics and were ready to take off with a course based on calculus. 

It was decided to devote as amny lectures as necessary to introduce required mathematics and raise the level of mathematical abilities of students with little previous mathematics background. Every time some result or formula was used and explanation its usage was given and all steps were worked out on the backboard. At a later stage the students were asked to complete the mathematical details in the class itself. This helped in momitoring their progress and in gaining an understanding of their difficulties.

Attempts were made to introduce physics topics in a manner not requiring haevy duty calculus but without comprmising on the Physics part of it. Rigid Body Dynamics was covered mostly with systems of point particles attached with massless rigid rods. Thus computation of moment of inertia of rigid bodies requiring heavy use of integral calculus was completely omitted.

A detailed discussion rotations was taken up in the initial stages of the course. Vector algebra was the only prerequisite needed for this topic. This helped in a detailed discussion of several topics such as motion in non inertial  frames and rigid body dynamics.     

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