Classical · Module 02
Galileo's insight that motion needs no cause, made quantitative by Newton. This is the first time in your education that a few lines of algebra genuinely predict the future.
By the end of this module
You can predict the trajectory of anything, given the forces on it.
Can I describe how something moves without knowing why?
MIT OCW
Lectures, notes, problem sets, solutions. The spine of this module.
Walter Lewin, MIT
Legendary teaching. Lewin swings on a wrecking ball to prove energy conservation.
Why can I treat horizontal and vertical motion as two separate problems?
PhET, University of Colorado
Change one variable at a time and watch the parabola respond.
Is F = ma a discovery, or a definition of what we mean by force?
Caltech
Feynman is careful about exactly the question above.
Isaac Newton, 1687
Read the three laws in the original. It is shorter than you expect.
Which forces are fundamental and which are bookkeeping for something messier?
If speed is constant, why is there any acceleration at all?
PhET
Turn gravity off mid-orbit and watch Newton's first law take over.
Check yourself
Every answer comes with the reasoning, not just a verdict. Getting one wrong and reading why is the point.
01A ball is thrown horizontally off a cliff at the same instant an identical ball is dropped. Which lands first?
02A car turns a corner at constant speed. The net force on it is:
03You push a crate and it does not move. The friction force on the crate is: