PHYS 325 :: Physics Illinois :: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Textbooks, formulary and extra (online) material

Primary and optional textbooks

Classical mechanics is an old subject, and as such there are many texts. Some that are recommended (and that should be on reserve in Grainger) are

John R. Taylor, "Classical Mechanics" (primary text)
Marion and Thornton, "Classical Dynamics of Particles and Systems." (optional)
Kleppner and Kolenow, "An Introduction to Mechanics" (optional, has some really interesting homework questions where the material overlaps with the course)

You are not required to buy a book. However, I encourage you to read the text to get a different perspective on the class. Furthermore, reading the indicated sections before class will give you an opportunity to familiarize yourself with the material of the lecture before the lecture is presented. Lectures tend to be much more clear when you have skimmed the material before hand. Lectures will be fairly self contained, so in principle one doesn't need a textbook at all. The lecture notes that I am using or a set of notes used by past instructors are posted on the course website.

Math and physics formulary

Here is a collection of useful Physics formulae and of Math formulae.

Computer algebra programs

UIUC students should have free access to Mathematica here.

LaTeX

Basic LaTeX tutorial for homeworks.

Tutorials

If you are looking for tutors or for opportunities to be a tutor, please check out the following information that the Physics Students Advisory Board (PhySAB) kindly shared with me:

A comprehensive tutoring resource for people in the College of Engineering is Center for Academic Resources in Engineering (CARE). The website has the instructions for signing up and the list of courses they have tutors for.
There are also tutoring options via the Office of Minority Student Affairs . They have a one-on-one system of tutoring and focus on minority students.
Also, PhySAB organizes weekly Study Halls for advanced undergraduate physics courses. The Study Halls occur every Saturday at 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm in the TA help rooms (Loomis 271, Loomis 275, Loomis 279). There is usually a mix of undergraduates from different periods in the Study Halls and we encourage the people that have experience to help out. I would appreciate if you told your students about this too if possible.

Classic Papers

Some of the classic texts in mechanics and relativity have been digitized and you can find them here:

Newton's papers, including his famous "Principia," digitized by Cambridge University Press
A. Einstein's "Special and General Theory of Relativity" (1916)
You can find the original (in German) here