PHY 101
General Physics I (Mechanics)
2
Course Description
On completion, the student should be able to:
1. identify and deduce the physical quantities and their units;
2. differentiate between vectors and scalars;
3. describe and evaluate motion of systems on the basis of the fundamental laws of
mechanics;
4. apply Newton’s laws to describe and solve simple problems of motion;
5. evaluate work, energy, velocity, momentum, acceleration, and torque of moving or rotating
objects;
6. explain and apply the principles of conservation of energy, linear and angular momentum;
7. describe the laws governing motion under gravity; and
8. explain motion under gravity and quantitatively determine behaviour of objects moving
under gravity.
Course Outline
Space and time; units and dimension, vectors and scalars, differentiation of vectors:
displacement, velocity and acceleration; kinematics; Newton laws of motion (inertial frames,
impulse, force and action at a distance, momentum conservation). Relative motion, application
of Newtonian mechanics; Equations of motion; Conservation principles in physics, conservative
forces, conservation of linear momentum, kinetic energy and work, potential energy, system of
particles, centre of mass; rotational motion; torque, vector product, moment, rotation of
coordinate axes and angular momentum. Polar coordinates; conservation of angular momentum;
Circular motion, moments of inertia, gyroscopes and precession; gravitation: Newton’s Law of
Gravitation, Kepler’s Laws of Planetary Motion, gravitational potential energy, escape velocity,
satellites motion and orbits.