Welcome to Applied Mechanics II - Engineering Dynamics

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Applied Mechanics II (or Dynamics) is the study of how things move and interact. We are limiting our study to Newtonian mechanics. We won’t consider quantum effects like wave-particle duality or relativistic effects. Our current interest is to describe free and constrained motion much less than the speed of light and with mass much larger than an atom, but much smaller than the sun (~1e-27 < m < 2e30 kg).

The two founding scientists of classical dynamics are Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) and Isaac Newton (1642-1726). Galileo described the geometry of moving objects and helped define our understanding of kinematics. Newton defined three kinetic laws that helped describe how force, impact, and energy relate to changes in motion.

This course explores the geometry of motion and the effect of forces, impact, and energy in engineering. Kinematics is the study of the geometry of motion. Kinetics is the study of forces, impacts, and energy on objects.