Preprint typeset in JHEP style - HYPER VERSION Lent Term, 2013

Dynamics and Relativity

University of Cambridge Part IA Mathematical Tripos

David Tong
Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics,
Centre for Mathematical Sciences,
Wilberforce Road,
Cambridge, CB3 OBA, UK

http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/tong/relativity.html
d.tong@damtp.cam.ac.uk

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Recommended Books and Resources

• Tom Kibble and Frank Berkshire, “Classical Mechanics”

• Douglas Gregory, “Classical Mechanics”

Both of these books are well written and do an excellent job of explaining the funda-
mentals of classical mechanics. If you’re struggling to understand some of the basic
concepts, these are both good places to turn.

• S. Chandrasekhar, “Newton’s Principia (for the common reader)”

Want to hear about Newtonian mechanics straight from the horse’s mouth? This is
an annotated version of the Principia with commentary by the Nobel prize winning
astrophysicist Chandrasekhar who walks you through Newton’s geometrical proofs.
Although, in fairness, Newton is sometimes easier to understand than Chandra.

• A.P. French, “Special Relativity”

A clear introduction, covering the theory in some detail.

• Wolfgang Pauli, “Theory of Relativity”

Pauli was one of the founders of quantum mechanics and one of the great physicists of
the last century. Much of this book was written when he was just 21. It remains one
of the most authoritative and scholarly accounts of special relativity. It’s not for the
faint of heart. (But it is cheap).

A number of excellent lecture notes are available on the web. Links can be found on
the course webpage: http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/tong/relativity.html
Contents

1. Newtonian Mechanics 1
1.1 Newton’s Laws of Motion 2
1.1.1 Newton’s Laws 3
1.2 Inertial Frames and Newton’s First Law 4
1.2.1 Galilean Relativity 5
1.3 Newton’s Second Law 8
1.4 Looking Forwards: The Validity of Newtonian Mechanics 9

2. Forces 11
2.1 Potentials in One Dimension 11
2.1.1 Moving in a Potential 13
2.1.2 Equilibrium: Why (Almost) Everything is a Harmonic Oscillator 16
2.2 Potentials in Three Dimensions 18
2.2.1 Central Forces 20
2.2.2 Angular Momentum 21
2.3 Gravity 22
2.3.1 The Gravitational Field 22
2.3.2 Escape Velocity 24
2.3.3 Inertial vs Gravitational Mass 25
2.4 Electromagnetism 26
2.4.1 The Electric Field of a Point Charge 27
2.4.2 Circles in a Constant Magnetic Field 28
2.4.3 An Aside: Maxwell’s Equations 31
2.5 Friction 31
2.5.1 Dry Friction 31
2.5.2 Fluid Drag 32
2.5.3 The Damped Harmonic Oscillator 33
2.5.4 Terminal Velocity with Quadratic Friction 34

3. Interlude: Dimensional Analysis 40

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4. Central Forces 48
4.1 Polar Coordinates in the Plane 48
4.2 Back to Central Forces 50
4.2.1 The E↵ective Potential: Getting a Feel for Orbits 52
4.2.2 The Stability of Circular Orbits 53
4.3 The Orbit Equation 55
4.3.1 The Kepler Problem 56
4.3.2 Kepler’s Laws of Planetary Motion 60
4.3.3 Orbital Precession 62
4.4 Scattering: Throwing Stu↵ at Other Stu↵ 63
4.4.1 Rutherford Scattering 65

5. Systems of Particles 67
5.1 Centre of Mass Motion 67
5.1.1 Conservation of Momentum 68
5.1.2 Angular Momentum 68
5.1.3 Energy 69
5.1.4 In Praise of Conservation Laws 70
5.1.5 Why the Two Body Problem is Really a One Body Problem 71
5.2 Collisions 72
5.2.1 Bouncing Balls 73
5.2.2 More Bouncing Balls and the Digits of ⇡ 74
5.3 Variable Mass Problems 76
5.3.1 Rockets: Things Fall Apart 77
5.3.2 Avalanches: Stu↵ Gathering Other Stu↵ 80
5.4 Rigid Bodies 81
5.4.1 Angular Velocity 82
5.4.2 The Moment of Inertia 82
5.4.3 Parallel Axis Theorem 85
5.4.4 The Inertia Tensor 87
5.4.5 Motion of Rigid Bodies 88

6. Non-Inertial Frames 93
6.1 Rotating Frames 93
6.1.1 Velocity and Acceleration in a Rotating Frame 94
6.2 Newton’s Equation of Motion in a Rotating Frame 95
6.3 Centrifugal Force 97
6.3.1 An Example: Apparent Gravity 97

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 6.4 Coriolis Force 99
6.4.1 Particles, Baths and Hurricanes 100
6.4.2 Balls and Towers 102
6.4.3 Foucault’s Pendulum 103
6.4.4 Larmor Precession 106

7. Special Relativity 107

7.1 Lorentz Transformations 108
7.1.1 Lorentz Transformations in Three Spatial Dimensions 111
7.1.2 Spacetime Diagrams 112
7.1.3 A History of Light Speed 113
7.2 Relativistic Physics 115
7.2.1 Simultaneity 115
7.2.2 Causality 117
7.2.3 Time Dilation 118
7.2.4 Length Contraction 122
7.2.5 Addition of Velocities 124
7.3 The Geometry of Spacetime 125
7.3.1 The Invariant Interval 125
7.3.2 The Lorentz Group 128
7.3.3 A Rant: Why c = 1 131
7.4 Relativistic Kinematics 132
7.4.1 Proper Time 133
7.4.2 4-Velocity 134
7.4.3 4-Momentum 136
7.4.4 Massless Particles 138
7.4.5 Newton’s Laws of Motion 140
7.4.6 Acceleration 141
7.4.7 Indices Up, Indices Down 144
7.5 Particle Physics 145
7.5.1 Particle Decay 146
7.5.2 Particle Collisions 147
7.6 Spinors 150
7.6.1 The Lorentz Group and SL(2, C) 151
7.6.2 What the Observer Actually Observes 154
7.6.3 Spinors 159

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 Acknowledgements

I inherited this course from Stephen Siklos. His excellent set of printed lecture notes
form the backbone of these notes and can be found at:

http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/stcs/dynamics.html

I’m grateful to the students, and especially Henry Mak, for pointing out typos and
corrections. My thanks to Alex Considine for putting up with the lost weekends while
these lectures were written.

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1. Newtonian Mechanics
Classical mechanics is an ambitious theory. Its purpose is to predict the future and
reconstruct the past, to determine the history of every particle in the Universe.

In this course, we will cover the basics of classical mechanics as formulated by Galileo
and Newton. Starting from a few simple axioms, Newton constructed a mathematical
framework which is powerful enough to explain a broad range of phenomena, from
the orbits of the planets, to the motion of the tides, to the scattering of elementary
particles. Before it can be applied to any specific problem, the framework needs just a
single input: a force. With this in place, it is merely a matter of turning a mathematical
handle to reveal what happens next.

We start this course by exploring the framework of Newtonian mechanics, under-

standing the axioms and what they have to tell us about the way the Universe works.
We then move on to look at a number of forces that are at play in the world. Nature is
kind and the list is surprisingly short. Moreover, many of forces that arise have special
properties, from which we will see new concepts emerging such as energy and conserva-
tion principles. Finally, for each of these forces, we turn the mathematical handle. We
turn this handle many many times. In doing so, we will see how classical mechanics is
able to explain large swathes of what we see around us.

Despite its wild success, Newtonian mechanics is not the last word in theoretical
physics. It struggles in extremes: the realm of the very small, the very heavy or the
very fast. We finish these lectures with an introduction to special relativity, the theory
which replaces Newtonian mechanics when the speed of particles is comparable to the
speed of light. We will see how our common sense ideas of space and time are replaced
by something more intricate and more beautiful, with surprising consequences. Time
goes slow for those on the move; lengths get smaller; mass is merely another form of
energy.

Ultimately, the framework of classical mechanics falls short of its ambitious goal to
tell the story of every particle in the Universe. Yet it provides the basis for all that
follows. Some of the Newtonian ideas do not survive to later, more sophisticated,
theories of physics. Even the seemingly primary idea of force will fall by the wayside.
Instead other concepts that we will meet along the way, most notably energy, step to
the fore. But all subsequent theories are built on the Newtonian foundation.

Moreover, developments in the past 300 years have confirmed what is perhaps the
most important legacy of Galileo and Newton: the laws of Nature are written in the

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language of mathematics. This is one of the great insights of human civilisation. It
has ushered in scientific, industrial and technological revolutions. It has given us a new
way to look at the Universe. And, most crucially of all, it means that the power to
predict the future lies in hands of mathematicians rather than, say, astrologers. In this
course, we take the first steps towards grasping this power.

1.1 Newton’s Laws of Motion

Classical mechanics is all about the motion of particles. We start with a definition.

Definition: A particle is an object of insignificant size. This means that if you

want to say what a particle looks like at a given time, the only information you have
to specify is its position.

During this course, we will treat electrons, tennis balls, falling cats and planets as
particles. In all of these cases, this means that we only care about the position of the
object and our analysis will not, for example, be able to say anything about the look on
the cat’s face as it falls. However, it’s not immediately obvious that we can meaningfully
assign a single position to a complicated object such as a spinning, mewing cat. Should
we describe its position as the end of its tail or the tip of its nose? We will not provide
an immediate answer to this question, but we will return to it in Section 5 where we
will show that any object can be treated as a point-like particle if we look at the motion
of its centre of mass.

To describe the position of a particle we need a reference z

frame. This is a choice of origin, together with a set of axes which,

for now, we pick to be Cartesian. With respect to this frame, the
x
position of a particle is specified by a vector x, which we denote
using bold font. Since the particle moves, the position depends on
y
time, resulting in a trajectory of the particle described by
Figure 1:
x = x(t)

In these notes we will also use both the notation x(t) and r(t) to describe the trajectory
of a particle.

The velocity of a particle is defined to be

dx(t)
v⌘
dt

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Throughout these notes, we will often denote di↵erentiation with respect to time by a
“dot” above the variable. So we will also write v = ẋ. The acceleration of the particle
is defined to be
d2 x(t)
a ⌘ ẍ =
dt2
A Comment on Vector Di↵erentiation
The derivative of a vector is defined by di↵erentiating each of the components. So, if
x = (x1 , x2 , x3 ) then
✓ ◆
dx dx1 dx2 dx3
= , ,
dt dt dt dt
Geometrically, the derivative of a path x(t) lies tangent to the path (a fact that you
will see in the Vector Calculus course).

In this course, we will be working with vector di↵erential equations. These should
be viewed as three, coupled di↵erential equations – one for each component. We will
frequently come across situations where we need to di↵erentiate vector dot-products
and cross-products. The meaning of these is easy to see if we use the chain rule on each
component. For example, given two vector functions of time, f (t) and g(t), we have
d df dg
(f · g) = ·g+f ·
dt dt dt
and
d df dg
(f ⇥ g) = ⇥g+f ⇥
dt dt dt
As usual, it doesn’t matter what order we write the terms in the dot product, but
we have to be more careful with the cross product because, for example, df /dt ⇥ g =
g ⇥ df /dt.

1.1.1 Newton’s Laws

Newtonian mechanics is a framework which allows us to determine the trajectory x(t)
of a particle in any given situation. This framework is usually presented as three axioms
known as Newton’s laws of motion. They look something like:

• N1: Left alone, a particle moves with constant velocity.

• N2: The acceleration (or, more precisely, the rate of change of momentum) of a
particle is proportional to the force acting upon it.

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 • N3: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

While it is worthy to try to construct axioms on which the laws of physics rest, the
trite, minimalistic attempt above falls somewhat short. For example, on first glance,
it appears that the first law is nothing more than a special case of the second law. (If
the force vanishes, the acceleration vanishes which is the same thing as saying that the
velocity is constant). But the truth is somewhat more subtle. In what follows we will
take a closer look at what really underlies Newtonian mechanics.

1.2 Inertial Frames and Newton’s First Law

Placed in the historical context, it is understandable that Newton wished to stress the
first law. It is a rebuttal to the Aristotelian idea that, left alone, an object will naturally
come to rest. Instead, as Galileo had previously realised, the natural state of an object
is to travel with constant speed. This is the essence of the law of inertia.

However, these days we’re not bound to any Aristotelian dogma. Do we really need
the first law? The answer is yes, but it has a somewhat di↵erent meaning.

We’ve already introduced the idea of a frame of reference: a Cartesian coordinate

system in which you measure the position of the particle. But for most reference frames
you can think of, Newton’s first law is obviously incorrect. For example, suppose the
coordinate system that I’m measuring from is rotating. Then, everything will appear
to be spinning around me. If I measure a particle’s trajectory in my coordinates as
x(t), then I certainly won’t find that d2 x/dt2 = 0, even if I leave the particle alone. In
rotating frames, particles do not travel at constant velocity.

We see that if we want Newton’s first law to fly at all, we must be more careful about
the kind of reference frames we’re talking about. We define an inertial reference frame
to be one in which particles do indeed travel at constant velocity when the force acting
on it vanishes. In other words, in an inertial frame

ẍ = 0 when F = 0

The true content of Newton’s first law can then be better stated as

• N1 Revisited: Inertial frames exist.

These inertial frames provide the setting for all that follows. For example, the second
law — which we shall discuss shortly — should be formulated in inertial frames.

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 One way to ensure that you are in an inertial frame is to insist that you are left alone
yourself: fly out into deep space, far from the e↵ects of gravity and other influences,
turn o↵ your engines and sit there. This is an inertial frame. However, for most
purposes it will suffice to treat axes of the room you’re sitting in as an inertial frame.
Of course, these axes are stationary with respect to the Earth and the Earth is rotating,
both about its own axis and about the Sun. This means that the Earth does not quite
provide an inertial frame and we will study the consequences of this in Section 6.

1.2.1 Galilean Relativity

Inertial frames are not unique. Given one inertial frame, S, in which a particle has
coordinates x(t), we can always construct another inertial frame S 0 in which the particle
has coordinates x0 (t) by any combination of the following transformations,

• Translations: x 0 = x + a, for constant a.

• Rotations: x 0 = Rx, for a 3 ⇥ 3 matrix R obeying RT R = 1. (This also allows for

reflections if det R = 1, although our interest will primarily be on continuous
transformations).

• Boosts: x 0 = x + vt, for constant velocity v.

It is simple to prove that all of these transformations map one inertial frame to another.
Suppose that a particle moves with constant velocity with respect to frame S, so that
d2 x/dt2 = 0. Then, for each of the transformations above, we also have d2 x 0 /dt2 = 0
which tells us that the particle also moves at constant velocity in S 0 . Or, in other
words, if S is an inertial frame then so too is S 0 . The three transformations generate a
group known as the Galilean group.

The three transformations above are not quite the unique transformations that map
between inertial frames. But, for most purposes, they are the only interesting ones!
The others are transformations of the form x 0 = x for some 2 R. This is just a
trivial rescaling of the coordinates. For example, we may choose to measure distances
in S in units of meters and distances in S 0 in units of parsecs.

We have already mentioned that Newton’s second law is to be formulated in an

inertial frame. But, importantly, it doesn’t matter which inertial frame. In fact, this
is true for all laws of physics: they are the same in any inertial frame. This is known
as the principle of relativity. The three types of transformation laws that make up the
Galilean group map from one inertial frame to another. Combined with the principle
of relativity, each is telling us something important about the Universe

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 • Translations: There is no special point in the Universe.

• Rotations: There is no special direction in the Universe.

• Boosts: There is no special velocity in the Universe

The first two are fairly unsurprising: position is relative; direction is relative. The third
perhaps needs more explanation. Firstly, it is telling us that there is no such thing as
“absolutely stationary”. You can only be stationary with respect to something else.
Although this is true (and continues to hold in subsequent laws of physics) it is not
true that there is no special speed in the Universe. The speed of light is special. We
will see how this changes the principle of relativity in Section 7.

So position, direction and velocity are relative. But acceleration is not. You do
not have to accelerate relative to something else. It makes perfect sense to simply say
that you are accelerating or you are not accelerating. In fact, this brings us back to
Newton’s first law: if you are not accelerating, you are sitting in an inertial frame.

The principle of relativity is usually associated to Einstein, but in fact dates back
at least as far as Galileo. In his book, “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World
Systems”, Galileo has the character Salviati talk about the relativity of boosts,

Shut yourself up with some friend in the main cabin below decks on some
large ship, and have with you there some flies, butterflies, and other small
flying animals. Have a large bowl of water with some fish in it; hang up a
bottle that empties drop by drop into a wide vessel beneath it. With the
ship standing still, observe carefully how the little animals fly with equal
speed to all sides of the cabin. The fish swim indi↵erently in all directions;
the drops fall into the vessel beneath; and, in throwing something to your
friend, you need throw it no more strongly in one direction than another,
the distances being equal; jumping with your feet together, you pass equal
spaces in every direction. When you have observed all these things carefully
(though doubtless when the ship is standing still everything must happen
in this way), have the ship proceed with any speed you like, so long as the
motion is uniform and not fluctuating this way and that. You will discover
not the least change in all the e↵ects named, nor could you tell from any of
them whether the ship was moving or standing still.

Galileo Galilei, 1632

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Absolute Time
There is one last issue that we have left implicit in the discussion above: the choice of
time coordinate t. If observers in two inertial frames, S and S 0 , fix the units – seconds,
minutes, hours – in which to measure the duration time then the only remaining choice
they can make is when to start the clock. In other words, the time variable in S and
S 0 di↵er only by

t0 = t + t0

This is sometimes included among the transformations that make up the Galilean
group.

The existence of a uniform time, measured equally in all inertial reference frames,
is referred to as absolute time. It is something that we will have to revisit when we
discuss special relativity. As with the other Galilean transformations, the ability to
shift the origin of time is reflected in an important property of the laws of physics. The
fundamental laws don’t care when you start the clock. All evidence suggests that the
laws of physics are the same today as they were yesterday. They are time translationally
invariant.

Cosmology
Notably, the Universe itself breaks several of the Galilean transformations. There was
a very special time in the Universe, around 13.7 billion years ago. This is the time of
the Big Bang (which, loosely translated, means “we don’t know what happened here”).

Similarly, there is one inertial frame in which the background Universe is stationary.
The “background” here refers to the sea of photons at a temperature of 2.7 K which
fills the Universe, known as the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation. This is the
afterglow of the fireball that filled all of space when the Universe was much younger.
Di↵erent inertial frames are moving relative to this background and measure the radi-
ation di↵erently: the radiation looks more blue in the direction that you’re travelling,
redder in the direction that you’ve come from. There is an inertial frame in which this
background radiation is uniform, meaning that it is the same colour in all directions.

To the best of our knowledge however, the Universe defines neither a special point,
nor a special direction. It is, to very good approximation, homogeneous and isotropic.

However, it’s worth stressing that this discussion of cosmology in no way invalidates
the principle of relativity. All laws of physics are the same regardless of which inertial
frame you are in. Overwhelming evidence suggests that the laws of physics are the

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same in far flung reaches of the Universe. They were the same in first few microseconds
after the Big Bang as they are now.

1.3 Newton’s Second Law

The second law is the meat of the Newtonian framework. It is the famous “F = ma”,
which tells us how a particle’s motion is a↵ected when subjected to a force F. The
correct form of the second law is
d
(mẋ) = F(x, ẋ) (1.1)
dt
This is usually referred to as the equation of motion. The quantity in brackets is called
the momentum,

p ⌘ mẋ

Here m is the mass of the particle or, more precisely, the inertial mass. It is a measure
of the reluctance of the particle to change its motion when subjected to a given force
F. In most situations, the mass of the particle does not change with time. In this case,
we can write the second law in the more familiar form,

mẍ = F(x, ẋ) (1.2)

For much of this course, we will use the form (1.2) of the equation of motion. However,
in Section 5.3, we will briefly look at a few cases where masses are time dependent and
we need the more general form (1.1).

Newton’s second law doesn’t actually tell us anything until someone else tells us what
the force F is in any given situation. We will describe several examples in the next
section. In general, the force can depend on the position x and the velocity ẋ of the
particle, but does not depend on any higher derivatives. We could also, in principle,
consider forces which include an explicit time dependence, F(x, ẋ, t), although we won’t
do so in these lectures. Finally, if more than one (independent) force is acting on the
particle, then we simply take their sum on the right-hand side of (1.2).

The single most important fact about Newton’s equation is that it is a second order
di↵erential equation. This means that we will have a unique solution only if we specify
two initial conditions. These are usually taken to be the position x(t0 ) and the velocity
ẋ(t0 ) at some initial time t0 . However, exactly what boundary conditions you must
choose in order to figure out the trajectory depends on the problem you are trying to
solve. It is not unusual, for example, to have to specify the position at an initial time
t0 and final time tf to determine the trajectory.

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 The fact that the equation of motion is second order is a deep statement about
the Universe. It carries over, in essence, to all other laws of physics, from quantum
mechanics to general relativity to particle physics. Indeed, the fact that all initial
conditions must come in pairs — two for each “degree of freedom” in the problem
— has important ramifications for later formulations of both classical and quantum
mechanics.

For now, the fact that the equations of motion are second order means the following:
if you are given a snapshot of some situation and asked “what happens next?” then
there is no way of knowing the answer. It’s not enough just to know the positions of
the particles at some point of time; you need to know their velocities too. However,
once both of these are specified, the future evolution of the system is fully determined
for all time.

1.4 Looking Forwards: The Validity of Newtonian Mechanics

Although Newton’s laws of motion provide an excellent approximation to many phe-
nomena, when pushed to extreme situation they are found wanting. Broadly speaking,
there are three directions in which Newtonian physics needs replacing with a di↵erent
framework: they are

• When particles travel at speeds close to the speed light, c ⇡ 3 ⇥ 108 ms 1 ,

the Newtonian concept of absolute time breaks down and Newton’s laws need
modification. The resulting theory is called special relativity and will be described
in Section 7. As we will see, although the relationship between space and time
is dramatically altered in special relativity, much of the framework of Newtonian
mechanics survives unscathed.

• On very small scales, much more radical change is needed. Here the whole frame-
work of classical mechanics breaks down so that even the most basic concepts,
such as the trajectory of a particle, become ill-defined. The new framework that
holds on these small scales is called quantum mechanics. Nonetheless, there are
quantities which carry over from the classical world to the quantum, in particular
energy and momentum.

• When we try to describe the forces at play between particles, we need to introduce
a new concept: the field. This is a function of both space and time. Familiar
examples are the electric and magnetic fields of electromagnetism. We won’t have
too much to say about fields in this course. For now, we mention only that the
equations which govern the dynamics of fields are always second order di↵erential

–9–
 equations, similar in spirit to Newton’s equations. Because of this similarity, field
theories are again referred to as “classical”.

Eventually, the ideas of special relativity, quantum mechanics and field theories are
combined into quantum field theory. Here even the concept of particle gets subsumed
into the concept of a field. This is currently the best framework we have to describe
the world around us. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s firstly return to our
Newtonian world....

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2. Forces

In this section, we describe a number of di↵erent forces that arise in Newtonian me-
chanics. Throughout, we will restrict attention to the motion of a single particle. (We’ll
look at what happens when we have more than one particle in Section 5). We start
by describing the key idea of energy conservation, followed by a description of some
common and important forces.

2.1 Potentials in One Dimension

Let’s start by considering a particle moving on a line, so its position is determined by
a single function x(t). For now, suppose that the force on the particle depends only on
the position, not the velocity: F = F (x). We define the potential V (x) (also called the
potential energy) by the equation

dV
F (x) = (2.1)
dx
The potential is only defined up to an additive constant. We can always invert (2.1)
by integrating both sides. The integration constant is now determined by the choice of
lower limit of the integral,
Z x
V (x) = dx0 F (x0 )
x0

Here x0 is just a dummy variable. (Do not confuse the prime with di↵erentiation! In
this course we will only take derivatives of position x with respect to time and always
denote them with a dot over the variable). With this definition, we can write the
equation of motion as

dV
mẍ = (2.2)
dx
For any force in one-dimension which depends only on the position, there exists a
conserved quantity called the energy,

1
E = mẋ2 + V (x)
2

The fact that this is conserved means that Ė = 0 for any trajectory of the particle which
obeys the equation of motion. While V (x) is called the potential energy, T = 12 mẋ2 is
called the kinetic energy. Motion satisfying (2.2) is called conservative.

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 It is not hard to prove that E is conserved. We need only di↵erentiate to get
✓ ◆
dV dV
Ė = mẋẍ + ẋ = ẋ mẍ + =0
dx dx

where the last equality holds courtesy of the equation of motion (2.2).

In any dynamical system, conserved quantities of this kind are very precious. We
will spend some time in this course fishing them out of the equations and showing how
they help us simplify various problems.

An Example: A Uniform Gravitational Field

In a uniform gravitational field, a particle is subjected to a constant force, F = mg
where g ⇡ 9.8 ms 2 is the acceleration due to gravity near the surface of the Earth.
The minus sign arises because the force is downwards while we have chosen to measure
position in an upwards direction which we call z. The potential energy is

V = mgz

Notice that we have chosen to have V = 0 at z = 0. There is nothing that forces us

to do this; we could easily add an extra constant to the potential to shift the zero to
some other height.

The equation of motion for uniform acceleration is

z̈ = g

Which can be trivially integrated to give the velocity at time t,

ż = u gt (2.3)

where u is the initial velocity at time t = 0. (Note that z is measured in the upwards
direction, so the particle is moving up if ż > 0 and down if ż < 0). Integrating once
more gives the position
1 2
z = z0 + ut gt (2.4)
2
where z0 is the initial height at time t = 0. Many high schools teach that (2.3) and
(2.4) — the so-called “suvat” equations — are key equations of mechanics. They are
not. They are merely the integration of Newton’s second law for constant acceleration.
Do not learn them; learn how to derive them.

– 12 –
Another Simple Example: The Harmonic Oscillator
The harmonic oscillator is, by far, the most important dynamical system in all of
theoretical physics. The good news is that it’s very easy. (In fact, the reason that
it’s so important is precisely because it’s easy!). The potential energy of the harmonic
oscillator is defined to be
1
V (x) = kx2
2
The harmonic oscillator is a good model for, among other things, a particle attached
to the end of a spring. The force resulting from the energy V is given by F = kx
which, in the context of the spring, is called Hooke’s law. The equation of motion is

mẍ = kx

which has the general solution

r
k
x(t) = A cos(!t) + B sin(!t) with ! =
m
Here A and B are two integration constants and ! is called the angular frequency. We
see that all trajectories are qualitatively the same: they just bounce backwards and
forwards around the origin. The coefficients A and B determine the amplitude of the
oscillations, together with the phase at which you start the cycle. The time taken to
complete a full cycle is called the period
2⇡
T = (2.5)
!
The period is independent of the amplitude. (Note that, annoyingly, the kinetic energy
is also often denoted by T as well. Do not confuse this with the period. It should
hopefully be clear from the context).

If we want to determine the integration constants A and B for a given trajectory, we

need some initial conditions. For example, if we’re given the position and velocity at
time t = 0, then it’s simple to check that A = x(0) and B! = ẋ(0).

2.1.1 Moving in a Potential

Let’s go back to the general case of a potential V (x) in one dimension. Although the
equation of motion is a second order di↵erential equation, the existence of a conserved
energy magically allows us to turn this into a first order di↵erential equation,
r
1 dx 2
E = mẋ2 + V (x) ) =± (E V (x))
2 dt m

– 13 –
This gives us our first hint of the importance of conserved quantities in helping solve
a problem. Of course, to go from a second order equation to a first order equation, we
must have chosen an integration constant. In this case, that is the energy E itself. Given
a first order equation, we can always write down a formal solution for the dynamics
simply by integrating,
Z x
dx0
t t0 = ± q (2.6)
2 0
x0
m
(E V (x ))

As before, x0 is a dummy variable. If we can do the integral, we’ve solved the problem.
If we can’t do the integral, you sometimes hear that the problem has been “reduced to
quadrature”. This rather old-fashioned phrase really means “I can’t do the integral”.
But, it is often the case that having a solution in this form allows some of its properties
to become manifest. And, if nothing else, one can always just evaluate the integral
numerically (i.e. on your laptop) if need be.

Getting a Feel for the Solutions

Given the potential energy V (x), it is often very simple to figure out the qualitative
nature of any trajectory simply by looking at the form of V (x). This allows us to answer
some questions with very little work. For example, we may want to know whether the
particle is trapped within some region of space or can escape to infinity.

Let’s illustrate this with an example. Consider the cubic potential

V (x) = m(x3 3x) (2.7)

If we were to substitute this into the general form (2.6), we’d get a fearsome looking
integral which hasn’t been solved since Victorian times1 .

Even without solving the integral, we can make progress. The potential is plotted
in Figure 2. Let’s start with the particle sitting stationary at some position x0 . This
means that the energy is

E = V (x0 )

and this must remain constant during the subsequent motion. What happens next
depends only on x0 . We can identify the following possibilities
1
Ok, I’m exaggerating. The resulting integral is known as an elliptic integral. Although it can’t
be expressed in terms of elementary functions, it has lots of nice properties and has been studied to
death. 100 years ago, this kind of thing was standard fare in mathematics. These days, we usually have
more interesting things to teach. Nonetheless, the study of these integrals later resulted in beautiful
connections to geometry through the theory of elliptic functions and elliptic curves.

– 14 –
 V(x)

2m

x
−1 +1 +2

−2m

Figure 2: The cubic potential

• x0 = ±1: These are the local maximum and minimum. If we drop the particle at
these points, it stays there for all time.

• x0 2 ( 1, +2): Here the particle is trapped in the dip. It oscillates backwards

and forwards between the two points with potential energy V (x0 ). The particle
can’t climb to the right because it doesn’t have the energy. In principle, it could
live o↵ to the left where the potential energy is negative, but to get there it would
have to first climb the small bump at x = 1 and it doesn’t have the energy to
do so. (There is an assumption here which is implicit throughout all of classical
mechanics: the trajectory of the particle x(t) is a continuous function).

• x0 > 2: When released, the particle falls into the dip, climbs out the other side,
before falling into the void x ! 1.

• x0 < 1: The particle just falls o↵ to the left.

• x0 = +2: This is a special value, since E = 2m which is the same as the potential
energy at the local maximum x = 1. The particle falls into the dip and starts
to climb up towards x = 1. It can never stop before it reaches x = 1 for at
its stopping point it would have only potential energy V < 2m. But, similarly, it
cannot arrive at x = 1 with any excess kinetic energy. The only option is that
the particle moves towards x = 1 at an ever decreasing speed, only reaching the
maximum at time t ! 1. To see that this is indeed the case, we can consider
the motion of the particle when it is close to the maximum. We write x ⇡ 1 + ✏
with ✏ ⌧ 1. Then, dropping the ✏3 term, the potential is

V (x = 1 + ✏) ⇡ 2m 3m✏2 + . . .

– 15 –
 and, using (2.6), the time taken to reach x = 1 + ✏ is
Z ✏ ✓ ◆
d✏0 1 ✏
t t0 = p = p log
✏0 6✏0 6 ✏0

The logarithm on the right-hand side gives a divergence as ✏ ! 0. This tells us

that it indeed takes infinite time to reach the top as promised.

One can easily play a similar game to that above if the starting speed is not zero. In
general, one finds that the particle is trapped in the dip x 2 [ 1, +2] if its energy lies
in the interval E 2 [ 2m, 2m].

2.1.2 Equilibrium: Why (Almost) Everything is a Harmonic Oscillator

A particle placed at an equilibrium point will stay there for all time. In our last example
with a cubic potential (2.7), we saw two equilibrium points: x = ±1. In general, if
we want ẋ = 0 for all time, then clearly we must have ẍ = 0, which, from the form of
Newton’s equation (2.2), tells us that we can identify the equilibrium points with the
critical points of the potential,
dV
=0
dx
What happens to a particle that is close to an equilibrium point, x0 ? In this case, we
can Taylor expand the potential energy about x = x0 . Because, by definition, the first
derivative vanishes, we have
1
V (x) ⇡ V (x0 ) + V 00 (x0 )(x x0 ) 2 + . . . (2.8)
2
To continue, we need to know about the sign of V 00 (x0 ):

• V 00 (x0 ) > 0: In this case, the equilibrium point is a minimum of the potential
and the potential energy is that of a harmonic oscillator. From our discussion of
Section 2.1.2, we know that the particle oscillates backwards and forwards around
x0 with frequency
r
V 00 (x0 )
!=
m
Such equilibrium points are called stable. This analysis shows that if the ampli-
tude of the oscillations is small enough (so that we may ignore the (x x0 )3 terms
in the Taylor expansion) then all systems oscillating around a stable fixed point
look like a harmonic oscillator.

– 16 –
 • V 00 (x0 ) < 0: In this case, the equilibrium point is a maximum of the potential.
The equation of motion again reads
mẍ = V 00 (x0 ) (x x0 )
But with V 00 < 0, we have ẍ > 0 when x x0 > 0. This means that if we displace
the system a little bit away from the equilibrium point, then the acceleration
pushes it further away. The general solution is
r
V 00 (x0 )
x x0 = Ae↵t + Be ↵t with ↵ =
m
Any solution with the integration constant A 6= 0 will rapidly move away from
the fixed point. Since our whole analysis started from a Taylor expansion (2.8),
neglecting terms of order (x x0 )3 and higher, our approximation will quickly
break down. We say that such equilibrium points are unstable.

Notice that there are solutions around unstable fixed points with A = 0 and
B 6= 0 which move back towards the maximum at late times. These finely tuned
solutions arise in the kind of situation that we described for the cubic potential
where you drop the particle at a very special point (in the case of the cubic
potential, this point was x = 2) so that it just reaches the top of a hill in infinite
time. Clearly these solutions are not generic: they require very special initial
conditions.

• Finally, we could have V 00 (x0 ) = 0. In this case, there is nothing we can say about
the dynamics of the system without Taylor expanding the potential further.

Yet Another Example: The Pendulum

Consider a particle of mass m attached to the end of a light rod of x

length l. This counts as a one-dimensional system because we need θ

specify only a single coordinate to say what the system looks like at y
length, l

a given time. The best coordinate to choose is ✓, the angle that the T

rod makes with the vertical. The equation of motion is m

g
✓¨ = sin ✓ (2.9)
l
The energy is mg

1 Figure 3:
E = ml2 ✓˙2 mgl cos ✓
2
(Note: Since ✓ is an angular variable rather than a linear variable, the kinetic energy is
a little di↵erent. Hopefully this is familiar from earlier courses on mechanics. However,
we will rederive this result in Section 4).

– 17 –
 There are two qualitatively di↵erent motions of the pendulum. If E > mgl, then the
kinetic energy can never be zero. This means that the pendulum is making complete
circles. In contrast, if E < mgl, the pendulum completes only part of the circle before
it comes to a stop and swings back the other way. If the highest point of the swing is
✓0 , then the energy is

E= mgl cos ✓0

We can determine the period T of the pendulum using (2.6). It’s actually best to
calculate the period by taking 4 times the time the pendulum takes to go from ✓ = 0
to ✓ = ✓0 . We have
Z T /4 Z ✓0
d✓
T =4 dt = 4 p
2
2E/ml + (2g/l) cos ✓
0 0
s Z
✓0
l d✓
=4 p (2.10)
g 0 2 cos ✓ 2 cos ✓0
p
We see that the period is proportional to l/g multiplied by some dimensionless num-
ber given by (4 times) the integral. For what it’s worth, this integral turns out to be,
once again, an elliptic integral.

For small oscillations, we can write cos ✓ ⇡ p1 12 ✓2 and the pendulum becomes a
harmonic oscillator with angular frequency ! = g/l. If we replace the cos ✓’s in (2.10)
by their Taylor expansion, we have
s Z s Z s
✓0 1
l d✓ l dx l
T =4 p = 4 p = 2⇡
g 0 ✓02 ✓2 g 0 1 x2 g

This agrees with our result (2.5) for the harmonic oscillator.

2.2 Potentials in Three Dimensions

Let’s now consider a particle moving in three dimensional R3 . Here things are more
interesting. Firstly, it is possible to have energy conservation even if the force depends
on the velocity. We will see how this can happen in Section 2.4. Conversely, forces
which only depend on the position do not necessarily conserve energy: we need an extra
condition. For now, we restrict attention to forces of the form F = F(x). We have the
following result:

– 18 –
Claim: There exists a conserved energy if and only if the force can be written in
the form
F= rV (2.11)
for some potential function V (x). This means that the components of the force must
be of the form Fi = @V /@xi . The conserved energy is then given by
1
E = mẋ · ẋ + V (x) (2.12)
2

Proof: The proof that E is conserved if F takes the form (2.11) is exactly the same as
in the one-dimensional case, together with liberal use of the chain rule. We have
dE @V @xi
= mẋ · ẍ + i using summation convention
dt @x @t
= ẋ · (mẍ + rV ) = 0
where the last equality follows from the equation of motion which is mẍ = rV .

To go the other way, we must prove that if there exists a conserved energy E taking
the form (2.12) then the force is necessarily given by (2.11). To do this, we need the
concept of work. If a force F acts on a particle and succeeds in moving it from x(t1 )
to x(t2 ) along a trajectory C, then the work done by the force is defined to be
Z
W = F · dx
C

This is a line integral (of the kind you’ve met in the Vector Calculus course ). The
scalar product means that we take the component of the force along the direction of
the trajectory at each point. We can make this clearer by writing
Z t2
dx
W = F· dt
t1 dt
The integrand, which is the rate of doing work, is called the power, P = F · ẋ. Using
Newton’s second law, we can replace F = mẍ to get
Z t2 Z t2
1 d
W =m ẍ · ẋ dt = m (ẋ · ẋ) dt = T (t2 ) T (t1 )
t1 2 t1 dt

where
1
T ⌘ m ẋ · ẋ
2
is the kinetic energy. (You might think that K is a better name for kinetic energy. I’m
inclined to agree. Except in all advanced courses of theoretical physics, kinetic energy
is always denoted T which is why I’ve adopted the same notation here).

– 19 –
 So the total work done is proportional to the change in kinetic energy. If we want to
have a conserved energy of the form (2.12), then the change in kinetic energy must be
equal to the change in potential energy. This means we must be able to write
Z
W = F · dx = V (x(t1 )) V (x(t2 )) (2.13)
C

In particular, this result tells us that the work done must be independent of the tra-
jectory C; it can depend only on the end points x(t1 ) and x(t2 ). But a simple result
(which is proved in the Vector Calculus course) says that (2.13) holds only for forces
of the form

F= rV

as required ⇤.

Forces in three dimensions which take the form F = rV are called conservative.
You will also see in the Vector Calculus course that forces in R3 are conservative if and
only if r ⇥ F = 0.

2.2.1 Central Forces

A particularly important class of potentials are those which depend only on the distance
to a fixed point, which we take to be the origin

V (x) = V (r)

where r = |x|. The resulting force also depends only on the distance to the origin and,
moreover, always points in the direction of the origin,

dV
F(r) = rV = x̂ (2.14)
dr
Such forces are called central. In these lectures, we’ll also use the notation r̂ = x̂ to
denote the unit vector pointing radially from the origin to the position of the particle.
(In other courses, you may see this same vector denoted as er ).

In the Vector Calculus course, you will spend some time computing quantities such
as rV in spherical polar coordinates. But, even without such practice, it is a simple
matter to show that the force (2.14) is indeed aligned with the direction to the origin.
If x = (x1 , x2 , x3 ) then the radial distance is r2 = x21 + x22 + x23 , from which we can

– 20 –
compute @r/@xi = xi /r for i = 1, 2, 3. Then, using the chain rule, we have
✓ ◆
@V @V @V
rV = , ,
@x1 @x2 @x3
✓ ◆
dV @r dV @r dV @r
= , ,
dr @x1 dr @x2 dr @x3
dV ⇣ x1 x2 x3 ⌘ dV
= , , = x̂
dr r r r dr
2.2.2 Angular Momentum
We will devote all of Section 4 to the study L
of motion in central forces. For now, we will
just mention what is important about central
forces: they have an extra conserved quantity. x
This is a vector L called angular momentum, x

L = mx ⇥ ẋ
Figure 4:
Notice that, in contrast to the momentum p = mẋ, the angular momentum L depends
on the choice of origin. It is a perpendicular to both the position and the momentum.

Let’s look at what happens to angular momentum in the presence of a general force
F. When we take the time derivative, we get two terms. But one of these contains
ẋ ⇥ ẋ = 0. We’re left with
dL
= mx ⇥ ẍ = x ⇥ F
dt
The quantity ⌧ = x ⇥ F is called the torque. This gives us an equation for the change
of angular momentum that is very similar to Newton’s second law for the change of
momentum,
dL
=⌧
dt
Now we can see why central forces are special. When the force F lies in the same
direction as the position x of the particle, we have x ⇥ F = 0. This means that the
torque vanishes and angular momentum is conserved
dL
=0
dt
We’ll make good use of this result in Section 4 where we’ll see a number of important
examples of central forces.

– 21 –
2.3 Gravity
To the best of our knowledge, there are four fundamental forces in Nature. They are

• Gravity

• Electromagnetism

• Strong Nuclear Force

• Weak Nuclear Force

The two nuclear forces operate only on small scales, comparable, as the name suggests,
to the size of the nucleus (r0 ⇡ 10 15 m). We can’t really give an honest description of
these forces without invoking quantum mechanics and, for this reason, we won’t discuss
them in this course. (A very rough, and slightly dishonest, classical description of the
strong nuclear force can be given by the potential V (r) ⇠ e r/r0 /r). In this section we
discuss the force of gravity; in the next, electromagnetism.

Gravity is a conservative force. Consider a particle of mass M fixed at the origin. A

particle of mass m moving in its presence experiences a potential energy
GM m
V (r) = (2.15)
r
Here G is Newton’s constant. It determines the strength of the gravitational force and
is given by

G ⇡ 6.67 ⇥ 10 11
m3 Kg 1 s 2

The force on the particle is given by

GM m
F= rV = r̂ (2.16)
r2
where r̂ is the unit vector in the direction of the particle. This is Newton’s famous
inverse-square law for gravity. The force points towards the origin. We will devote
much of Section 4 to studying the motion of a particle under the inverse-square force.

2.3.1 The Gravitational Field

The quantity V in (2.15) is the potential energy of a particle of mass m in the presence
of mass M . It is common to define the gravitational field of the mass M to be
GM
(r) =
r

– 22 –
 is sometimes called the Newtonian gravitational field to distinguish it from a more
sophisticated object later introduced by Einstein. It is also sometimes called the grav-
itational potential. It is a property of the mass M alone. The potential energy of the
mass m is then given by V = m .

The gravitational field due to many particles is simply the sum of the field due to
each individual particle. If we fix particles with masses Mi at positions ri , then the
total gravitational field is
X Mi
(r) = G
i
|r ri |
The gravitational force that a moving particle of mass m experiences in this field is
X Mi
F = Gm (r ri )
i
|r ri |3
The Gravitational Field of a Planet
The fact that contributions to the Newtonian gravitational potential add in a simple
linear fashion has an important consequence: the external gravitational field of a spher-
ically symmetric object of mass M – such as a star or planet – is the same as that of
a point mass M positioned at the origin.

The proof of this statement is an example of the volume r

integral that is covered in the Vector Calculus course. We include
it here only for completeness. We let the planet have density ⇢(r)
and radius R. Summing over the contribution from all points x R
inside the planet, the gravitational field is given by
Z
G⇢(x)
(r) = d3 x Figure 5:
|x|R |r x|
It’s best to work in spherical polar coordinates and to choose the polar direction, ✓ = 0,
to lie in the direction of r. Then r · x = rx cos ✓. We can use this to write an expression
for the denominator: |r x|2 = r2 +x2 2rx cos ✓. The gravitational field then becomes
Z R Z ⇡ Z 2⇡
⇢(x)x2 sin ✓
(r) = G dx d✓ d p
0 0 0 r2 + x2 2rx cos ✓
Z R Z ⇡
⇢(x)x2 sin ✓
= 2⇡G dx d✓ p
0 0 r2 + x2 2rx cos ✓
Z R
1 hp 2 i✓=⇡
= 2⇡G dx ⇢(x)x2 r + x2 2rx cos ✓
0 rx ✓=0
Z R
2⇡G
= dx ⇢(x)x (|r + x| |r x|)
r 0

– 23 –
So far this calculation has been done for any point r, whether inside or outside the
planet. At this point, we restrict attention to points external to the planet. This
means that |r + x| = r + x and |r x| = r x and we have
Z R
4⇡G GM
(r) = dx ⇢(x)x2 =
r 0 r

This is the result that we wanted to prove: the gravitational field is the same as that
of a point mass M at the origin.

2.3.2 Escape Velocity

Suppose that you’re trapped on the surface of a planet of radius R. (This should be
easy). Let’s firstly ask what gravitational potential energy you feel. Assuming you
can only rise a distance z ⌧ R from the planet’s surface, we can Taylor expand the
potential energy,
✓ ◆
GM m GM m z z2
V (R + z) = = 1 + + ...
R+z R R R2

If we’re only interested in small changes in z ⌧ R, we need focus only on the second
term, giving

GM m
V (z) ⇡ constant + z + ...
R2
This is the familiar potential energy that gives rise to constant acceleration. We usually
write g = GM/R2 . For the Earth, g ⇡ 9.8 ms 2 .

Now let’s be more ambitious. Suppose we want to escape our

parochial, planet-bound existence. So we decide to jump. How fast
do we have to jump if we wish to truly be free? This, it turns out, is
the same kind of question that we discussed in Section 2.1.1 in the con-
text of particles moving in one dimension and can be determined very
easily using gravitational energy V = GM m/r. If you jump directly Figure 6:
upwards (i.e. radially) with velocity v, your total energy as you leave
the surface is
1 GM m
E = mv 2
2 R
For any energy E < 0, you will eventually come to a halt at position r = GM m/E,
before falling back. If you want to escape the gravitational attraction of the planet for

– 24 –
ever, you will need energy E 0. At the minimum value of E = 0, the associated
velocity
r
2GM
vescape = (2.17)
R
This is the escape velocity.

Black Holes and the Schwarzchild Radius

Let’s do something a little dodgy. We’ll take the formula above and apply it to light.
The reason that this is dodgy is because, as we will see in Section 7, the laws of
Newtonian physics need modifying for particles close to the speed of light where the
e↵ects of special relativity are important. Nonetheless, let’s forget this for now and
plough ahead regardless.

Light travels at speed c ⇡ 3 ⇥ 108 ms 1 . Suppose that the escape velocity from the
surface of a star is greater than or equal to the speed of light. From (2.17), this would
happen if the radius of the star satisfies
2GM
R  RS =
c2
What do we see if this is the case? Well, nothing! The star is so dense that light can’t
escape from it. It’s what we call a black hole.

Although the derivation above is not trustworthy, by some fortunate coincidence

it turns out that the answer is correct. The distance Rs = 2GM/c2 is called the
Schwarzchild radius. If a star is so dense that it lies within its own Schwarzchild
radius, then it will form a black hole. (To demonstrate this properly, you really need
to work with the theory of general relativity).

For what it’s worth, the Schwarzchild radius of the Earth is around 1 cm. The
Schwarzchild radius of the Sun is about 3 km. You’ll be pleased to hear that, because
both objects are much larger than their Schwarzchild radii, neither is in danger of
forming a black hole any time soon.

2.3.3 Inertial vs Gravitational Mass

We have seen two formulae which involve mass, both due to Newton. These are the
second law (1.2) and the inverse-square law for gravity (2.16). Yet the meaning of
mass in these two equations is very di↵erent. The mass appearing in the second law
represents the reluctance of a particle to accelerate under any force. In contrast, the

– 25 –
mass appearing in the inverse-square law tells us the strength of a particular force,
namely gravity. Since these are very di↵erent concepts, we should really distinguish
between the two di↵erent masses. The second law involves the inertial mass, mI
mI ẍ = F
while Newton’s law of gravity involves the gravitational mass, mG
GMG mG
F= r̂
r2
It is then an experimental fact that
mI = mG (2.18)
Much experimental e↵ort has gone into determining the accuracy of (2.18), most no-
tably by the Hungarian physicist Eötvösh at the turn of the (previous) century. We
now know that the inertial and gravitational masses are equal to within about one part
in 1013 . Currently, the best experiments to study this equivalence, as well as searches
for deviations from Newton’s laws at short distances, are being undertaken by a group
at the University of Washington in Seattle who go by the name Eöt-Wash. A theoret-
ical understanding of the result (2.18) came only with the development of the theory
of General Relativity.

2.4 Electromagnetism
Throughout the Universe, at each point in space, there exist two vectors, E and B.
These are known as the electric and magnetic fields. Their role – at least for the
purposes of this course – is to guide any particle that carries electric charge.

The force experienced by a particle with electric charge q is called the Lorentz force,
⇣ ⌘
F = q E(x) + ẋ ⇥ B(x) (2.19)
Here we have used the notation E(x) and B(x) to stress that the electric and magnetic
fields are functions of space. Both their magnitude and direction can vary from point
to point.

The electric force is parallel to the electric field. By convention, particles with positive
charge q are accelerated in the direction of the electric field; those with negative electric
charge are accelerated in the opposite direction. Due to a quirk of history, the electron
is taken to have a negative charge given by
19
qelectron ⇡ 1.6 ⇥ 10 Coulombs
As far as fundamental physics is concerned, a much better choice is to simply say that
the electron has charge 1. All other charges can then be measured relative to this.

– 26 –
 The magnetic force looks rather di↵erent. It is a velocity dependent force, with
magnitude proportional to the speed of the particle, but with direction perpendicular
to that of the particle. We shall see its e↵ect in simple situations shortly.

In principle, both E and B can change in time. However, here we will consider only
situations where they are static. In this case, the electric field is always of the form

E= r

For some function (x) called the electric potential (or scalar potential or even just the
potential as if we didn’t already have enough things with that name).

For time independent fields, something special happens: energy is conserved.

Claim: The conserved energy is

1
E = mẋ · ẋ + q (x)
2
Proof:

Ė = mẋ · ẍ + qr · ẋ = ẋ · (F + qr ) = q ẋ · (ẋ ⇥ B) = 0

where the last equality occurs because ẋ ⇥ B is necessarily perpendicular to ẋ. Notice
that this gives an example of something we promised earlier: a velocity dependent force
which conserves energy. The key part of the derivation is that the velocity dependent
force is perpendicular to the trajectory of the particle. This ensures that the force does
no work. ⇤.

2.4.1 The Electric Field of a Point Charge

Charged objects do not only respond to electric fields; they also produce electric fields.
A particle of charge Q sitting at the origin will set up an electric field given by
✓ ◆
Q Q r̂
E= r = (2.20)
4⇡✏0 r 4⇡✏0 r2

where r2 = x · x. The quantity ✏0 has the grand name Permittivity of Free Space and
is a constant given by

✏0 ⇡ 8.85 ⇥ 10 12
m 3 Kg 1 s2 C 2

This quantity should be thought of as characterising the strength of the electric inter-
action.

– 27 –
 The force between two particles with charges Q and q is given by F = qE with E
given by (2.20). In other words,

qQ r̂
F=
4⇡✏0 r2
This is known as the Coulomb force. It is a remarkable fact that, mathematically,
the force looks identical to the Newtonian gravitational force (2.16): both have the
characteristic inverse-square form. We will study motion in this potential in detail in
Section 4, with particular focus on the Coulomb force in 4.4.

Although the forces of Newton and Coulomb look the same, there is one important
di↵erence. Gravity is always attractive because mass m > 0. In contrast, the electro-
static Coulomb force can be attractive or repulsive because charges q come with both
signs. Further di↵erences between gravity and electromagnetism come when you ask
what happens when sources (mass or charge) move; but that’s a story that will be told
in di↵erent courses.

2.4.2 Circles in a Constant Magnetic Field

Motion in a constant electric field is simple: the particle undergoes constant acceleration
in the direction of E. But what about motion in a constant magnetic field B? The
equation of motion is

mẍ = q ẋ ⇥ B

Let’s pick the magnetic field to lie in the z-direction and write

B = (0, 0, B)

We can now write the Lorentz force law (2.19) in components. It reads

mẍ = qB ẏ (2.21)
mÿ = qB ẋ (2.22)
mz̈ = 0

The last equation is easily solved and the particle just travels at constant velocity in
the z direction. The first two equations are more interesting. There are a number of
ways to solve them, but a particularly elegant way is to construct the complex variable
⇠ = x + iy. Then adding (2.21) to i times (2.22) gives

m⇠¨ = iqB ⇠˙

– 28 –
which can be integrated to give
i!t
⇠ = ↵e +

where ↵ and are integration constants and ! is given by

qB
!=
m
If we choose our initial conditions to be that the particle starts life at t = 0 at the
origin with velocity v in the y-direction, then ↵ and are fixed to be
v
⇠= e i!t 1
!
Translating this back into x and y coordinates, we have
v v
x = (cos !t 1) and y = sin !t
! !
The end result is that the particle undergoes
circles in the plane with angular frequency !,
known as the cyclotron frequency. The time to
undergo a full circle is fixed: T = 2⇡/!. In
contrast, the size of the circle is v/! and arises
as an integration constant. Circles of arbitrary
sizes are allowed; the only price that you pay is Figure 7:
that you have to go faster.

A Comment on Solving Vector Di↵erential Equations

The Lorentz force equation (2.19) gives a good example of a vector di↵erential equation.
The straightforward way to view these is always in components: they are three, coupled,
second order di↵erential equations for x, y and z. This is what we did above when
understanding the motion of a particle in a magnetic field.

However, one can also attack these kinds of questions without reverting to compo-
nents. Let’s see how this would work in the case of Larmor circles. We start with the
vector equation

mẍ = q ẋ ⇥ B (2.23)

To begin, we take the dot product with B. Since the right-hand side vanishes, we’re
left with

ẍ · B = 0

– 29 –
This tells us that the particle travels with constant velocity in the direction of B. This
is simply a rewriting of our previous result z̈ = 0. For simplicity, let’s just assume that
the particle doesn’t move in the B direction, remaining at the origin. This tells us that
the particle moves in a plane with equation

x·B=0 (2.24)

However, we’re not yet done. We started with (2.23) which was three equations. Taking
the dot product always reduces us to a single equation. So there must still be two further
equations lurking in (2.23) that we haven’t yet taken into account. To find them, the
systematic thing to do would be to take the cross product with B. However, in the
present case, it turns out that the simplest way forwards is to simply integrate (2.23)
once, to get

mẋ = qx ⇥ B + c

with c a constant of integration. We can now substitute this back into the right-hand
side of (2.23) to find

m2 ẍ = d + q 2 (x ⇥ B) ⇥ B
= d + q 2 ((x · B)B (B · B)x)
= q2B 2 x d/q 2 B 2

where the integration constant now sits in d = qc ⇥ B which, by construction, is

perpendicular to B. In the last line, we’ve used the equation (2.24). (Note that if
we’d considered a situation in which the particle was moving with constant velocity
in the B direction, we’d have to work a little harder at this point). The resulting
vector equation looks like three harmonic oscillators, displaced by the vector d/q 2 B 2 ,
oscillating with frequency ! = qB/m. However, because of the constraint (2.24), the
motion is necessarily only in the two directions perpendicular to B. The end result is
d
x= + ↵1 cos !t + ↵2 sin !t
q2B 2
with ↵i , i = 1, 2 integration constants satisfying ↵i · B = 0. This is the same result we
found previously.

Admittedly, in this particular example, working with components was somewhat

easier than manipulating the vector equations directly. But this won’t always be the
case — for some problems you’ll make more progress by playing the kind of games that
we’ve described here.

– 30 –
2.4.3 An Aside: Maxwell’s Equations
In the Lorentz force law, the only hint that the electric and magnetic fields are related
is that they both a↵ect a particle in a manner that is proportional to the electric charge.
The connection between them becomes much clearer when things depend on time. A
time dependent electric field gives rise to a magnetic field and vice versa. The dynamics
of the electric and magnetic fields are governed by Maxwell’s equations. In the absence
of electric charges, these equations are given by

r·E=0 , r·B=0
@B 1 @E
r⇥E= , r⇥B=
@t c2 @t
with c the speed of light. You will learn more about the properties of these equations
in the lectures on Electromagnetism.

For now, it’s worth making one small comment. When we showed that energy is
conserved, we needed both the electric and magnetic field to be time independent.
What happens when they change with time? In this case, energy is still conserved, but
we have to worry about the energy stored in the fields themselves.

2.5 Friction
Friction is a messy, dirty business. While energy is always conserved on a fundamental
level, it doesn’t appear to be conserved in most things that you do every day. If you
slide along the floor in your socks you don’t keep going for ever. At a microscopic level,
your kinetic energy is transferred to the atoms in the floor where it manifests itself as
heat. But if we only want to know how far our socks will slide, the details of all these
atomic processes are of little interest. Instead, we try to summarise everything in a
single, macroscopic force that we call friction.

2.5.1 Dry Friction

Dry friction occurs when two solid objects are in contact. Think R µR
of a heavy box being pushed along the floor, or some idiot slid-
ing in his socks. Experimentally, one finds that the complicated
dynamics involved in friction is usually summarised by the force
mg
F = µR
Figure 8:
where R is the reaction force, normal to the floor, and µ is a
constant called the coefficient of friction. Usually µ ⇡ 0.3, although it depends on

– 31 –
the kind of materials that are in contact. Moreover, the coefficient is usually, more or
less, independent of the velocity. We won’t have much to say about dry friction in this
course. In fact, we’ve already said it all.

2.5.2 Fluid Drag

Drag occurs when an object moves through a fluid — either liquid or gas. The resistive
force is opposite to the direction of the velocity and, typically, falls into one of two
categories
• Linear Drag:
F= v
where the coefficient of friction, , is a constant. This form of drag holds for
objects moving slowly through very viscous fluids. For a spherical object of
radius L, there is a formula due to Stokes which gives = 6⇡⌘L where ⌘ is the
viscosity of the fluid.
• Quadratic Drag:
F= |v|v
Again, is called the coefficient of friction. For quadratic friction, is usually
proportional to the surface area of the object, i.e. ⇠ L2 . (This is in contrast to
the coefficient for linear friction where Stokes’ formula gives ⇠ L). Quadratic
drag holds for fast moving objects in less viscous fluids. This includes objects
falling in air such as, for example, the various farmyard animals dropped by
Galileo from the leaning tower.

Quadratic drag arises because the object is banging into molecules in the fluid,
knocking them out the way. There is an intuitive way to see this. The force is
proportional to the change of momentum that occurs in each collision. That gives
one factor of v. But the force is also proportional to the number of collisions.
That gives the second factor of v, resulting in a force that scales as v 2 .
One can ask where the cross-over happens between linear and quadratic friction.
Naively, the linear drag must always dominate at low velocities simply because x x2
when x ⌧ 1. More quantitatively, the type of drag is determined by a dimensionless
number called the Reynolds number,
⇢vL
R⌘ (2.25)
⌘
where ⇢ is the density of the fluid while ⌘ is the viscosity. For R ⌧ 1, linear drag
dominates; for R 1, quadratic friction dominates.

– 32 –
What is Viscosity?
Above, we’ve mentioned the viscosity of the fluid, ⌘, without really defining it. For
completeness, I will mention here how to measure viscosity.

Place a fluid between two plates, a distance d v

apart. Keeping the lower plate still, move the top plate
at a constant speed v. This sets up a velocity gradient
in the fluid. But, the fluid pushes back. To keep the d
upper plate moving at constant speed, you will have to
push with a force per unit area which is proportional to
the velocity gradient, Figure 9:
F v
=⌘
A d
The coefficient of proportionality, ⌘, is defined to be the (dynamic) viscosity. You can
learn much more about the role that viscosity plays in the lectures on Fluid Mechanics.

2.5.3 The Damped Harmonic Oscillator

We start with our favourite system: the harmonic oscillator, now with a damping term.
The equation of motion is

mẍ = kx ẋ

Divide through by m to get

ẍ = !02 x 2↵ẋ

where !02 = k/m is the frequency of the undamped harmonic oscillator and ↵ = /2m.
We can look for solutions of the form

x = ei t

Remember that x is real, so we’re using a trick here. We rely on the fact that the
equation of motion is linear so that if we can find a solution of this form, we can take
the real and imaginary parts and this will also be a solution. Substituting this ansatz
into the equation of motion, we find a quadratic equation for . Solving this, gives the
general solution

x = Aei!+ t + Bei! t

p
with !± = i↵ ± !02 ↵2 . We identify three di↵erent regimes,

– 33 –
 • Underdamped: !02 > ↵2 . Here the solution takes the form,
↵t
x=e Aei⌦t + Be i⌦t

p
where ⌦ = !02 ↵2 . Here the system oscillates with a frequency ⌦ < !0 , while
the amplitude of the oscillations decays exponentially.

• Overdamped: !02 < ↵2 . The roots !± are now purely imaginary and the general
solution takes the form,
↵t
x=e Ae⌦t + Be ⌦t

Now there are no oscillations. Both terms decay exponentially. If you like, the
amplitude decays away before the system is able to undergo even a single oscil-
lation.

• Critical Damping: !02 = ↵2 . Now the two roots !± coincide. With a double root
of this form, the most general solution takes the form,
↵t
x = (A + Bt)e

Again, there are no oscillations but, given an initial condition with B 6= 0, the
system does achieve some mild linear growth for times t < 1/↵, after which it
decays away.

2.5.4 Terminal Velocity with Quadratic Friction

You can drop a mouse down a thousand-yard mine shaft; and, on arriving
at the bottom, it gets a slight shock and walks away, provided that the ground
is fairly soft. A rat is killed, a man is broken, a horse splashes.

J.B.S. Haldane, On Being the Right Size

Let’s look at a particle of mass m moving in a constant gravitational field, subject to

quadratic friction. We’ll measure the height z to be in the upwards direction, meaning
that if v = dz/dt > 0, the particle is going up. We’ll look at the cases where the
particle goes up and goes down separately.

Coming Down
Suppose that we drop the particle from some height. The equation of motion is given
by
dv
m = mg + v 2
dt

– 34 –
It’s worth commenting on the minus signs on the right-hand side. Gravity acts down-
wards, so comes with a minus sign. Since the particle is falling down, friction is acting
upwards so comes with a plus sign. Dividing through by m, we have

dv v2
= g+ (2.26)
dt m
Integrating this equation once gives
Z v
dv 0
t=
0 g v 0 2 /m
p
which can be easily solved by the substitution v = mg/ tanh x to get
r ✓r ◆
m 1
t= tanh v
g mg

Inverting this gives us the speed as a function of time

r ✓r ◆
mg g
v= tanh t
m

We now see the e↵ect of friction. As time increases, the velocity does not increase
without bound. Instead, the particle reaches a maximum speed,
r
mg
v! as t ! 1 (2.27)

This is the terminal velocity. The sign is negative because the particle is falling down-
wards. Notice that if all we wanted was the terminal velocity, then we don’t need to go
through the whole calculation above. We can simply look for solutions of (2.26) with
constant speed, so dv/dt = 0. This obviously gives us (2.27) as a solution. The advan-
tage of going through the full calculation is that we learn how the velocity approaches
its terminal value.

We can now see the origin of the quote we started with. The point is that if we
compare objects of equal density, the masses scale as the volume, meaning m ⇠ L3
where L is the linear size of the object. In contrast, the coefficient of friction usually
scales as surface area, ⇠ L2 . This means that the terminal velocity depends p on size.
For objects of equal density, we expect the terminal velocity to scale as v ⇠ L. I have
no idea if this is genuinely a big enough e↵ect to make horses splash. (Haldane was a
biologist, so he should know what it takes to make an animal splash. But in his essay
he assumed linear drag rather than quadratic, so maybe not).

– 35 –
Going Up
Now let’s think about throwing a particle upwards. Since both gravity and friction are
now acting downwards, we get a flip of a minus sign in the equation of motion. It is
now
dv v2
= g (2.28)
dt m
Suppose that we throw the object up with initial speed u and we want to figure out
the maximum height, h, that it reaches. We could follow our earlier calculation and
integrate (2.28) to determine v = v(t). But since we aren’t asking about time, it’s
much better to instead consider velocity as a function of distance: v = v(z). We write

dv dv dz dv v2
= =v = g
dt dz dt dz m
which can be rewritten as
1 d(v 2 ) v2
= g
2 dz m
Now we can integrate this equation to get velocity as a function of distance. Writing
y = v 2 , we have
Z Z
0
dy h
mh ⇣ y ⌘iy=0
= 2 dz ) log g + = 2h
u2 g + y/m 0 m y=u2

which we can rearrange to get the final answer,

✓ ◆
m u2
h= log 1 +
2 mg

It’s worth looking at what happens when the e↵ect of friction is small. Naively, it
looks like we’re in trouble here because as ! 0, the term in front gets very large.
But surely the height shouldn’t go to infinity just because the friction is small. The
resolution to this is that the log is also getting small in this limit. Expanding the log,
we have
✓ ◆
u2 u2
h= 1 + ...
2g 2mg

Here the leading term is indeed the answer we would get in the absence of friction; the
subleading terms tell us how much the friction, , lowers the attained height.

– 36 –
Linear Drag and Ohm’s Law
Consider an electron moving in a conductor. As we’ve seen, a constant electric field
causes the electron to accelerate. A fairly good model for the physics of a conduc-
tor, known as the Drude model, treats the electron as a classical particle with linear
damping. The resulting equation of motion is

mẍ = eE v

As in the previous example, we can figure out the terminal velocity by setting ẍ = 0,
to get

eE
v=

In a conductor, the velocity of the electron v gives the current density, j,

j= env

where n is the density of electrons. This then gives us a relationship between the
current density and the electric field

j= E

The quantity = e2 n/ is called the conductivity. This equation is Ohm’s law. How-
ever, it’s probably not yet in the form you know and love. If the wire has length L and
cross-sectional area A, then the current I is defined as I = jA. Meanwhile, the voltage
dropped across the wire is V = EL. With this in hand, we can rewrite Ohm’s law as

V = IR

where the resistance is given by R = L/ A.

A 3d Example: A Projectile with Linear Drag

All our examples so far have been e↵ectively one-dimensional. Here we give a three
dimensional example which provides another illustration of how to treat vector di↵er-
ential equations and, specifically, how to work with vector constants on integration.
We will consider a projectile, moving under gravity, experiencing linear drag. (Think
of a projectile moving very slowly in a viscous liquid). At time t = 0, we throw the
object with velocity u. What is its subsequent motion?

– 37 –
 The equation of motion is
dv
m = mg v (2.29)
dt
t/m
We can solve this by introducing the integrating factor e to write the equation as
d t/m t/m
e v =e g
dt
We now integrate, but have to introduce a vector integration constant – let’s call it c
– for our troubles. We have
m t/m
v= g + ce

We specified above that at time t = 0, the velocity is v = u, so we can use this

information to determine the integration constant c. We get
✓ ◆
m m
v= g+ u g e t/m

Now we integrate v = dx/dt a second time to determine x as a function of time. We

get another integration constant, b,
✓ ◆
m m m
x = gt u g e t/m + b

To determine this second integration constant, we need some further information about
the initial conditions. Lets say that x = 0 at t = 0. Then we have
✓ ◆
m m m
x = gt + u g 1 e t/m

We can now look at this in components to get a better idea of what’s going on.
We’ll write x = (x, y, z) and we’ll send the projectile o↵ with initial velocity u =
(u cos ✓, 0, u sin ✓). With gravity acting downwards, so g = (0, 0, g), our vector equa-
tion becomes three equations. One is trivial: y = 0. The other two are
m t/m
x= u cos ✓ 1 e
✓ ◆
mgt m mg t/m
z= + u sin ✓ + 1 e

Notice that the time scale m/ is important. For t m/ , the horizontal position is
essentially constant. By this time, the particle is dropping more or less vertically.

– 38 –
 Finally, we can revisit the question that we asked in the last example: what happens
when friction is small? Again, there are a couple of terms that look as if they are
going to become singular in this limit. But that sounds very unphysical. To resolve
this, we should ask what is small relative to. In the present case, the answer lies
in the exponential terms. To say that is small, really means ⌧ m/t or, in other
words, it means that we are looking at short times, t ⌧ m/ . Then we can expand the
exponential. Reverting to the vector form of the equation, we find
✓ ◆ ✓ ◆2 !
m m m t 1 t
x = gt + u g 1 1+ + ...
m 2 m
✓ ◆✓ ✓ ◆◆
1 2 t
= ut + gt 1+O
2 m

So we see that, on small time scales, we indeed recover the usual story of a projectile
without friction. The friction only becomes relevant when t ⇠ m/ .

– 39 –