Integrated Science - Physics

Catalog description

This course is about how to view the world from the perspective of classical mechanics, based on an understanding of the core concepts and theoretical laws. As a science foundation course, it helps students appreciate the elegant simplicity of the universal laws governing the complex systems surrounding us, and it teaches an important approach to identifying, formulating, and solving problems encountered in the physical world. The course begins with the core concepts of classical mechanics - time, space, mass, force, work, energy, momentum - and the physical laws that link them with each other. Students first learn Newton's laws and the universal law of gravitation as they apply to point mass systems. Subsequently, basic concepts of oscillation and waves, rigid body motion, fluid mechanics, thermodynamics and statistical mechanics are introduced, illustrated with real-life examples (e.g., physics of cooking, biosphere as a thermal engine) to help students integrate different science foundation courses by themselves. While no previous knowledge of Physics is required, some background is advantageous. 001489