Classical
Mechanics
Prerequisite: Di
ff
erent types of constraints, Virtual
displacement and virtual work, D'Alembert's
principle, generalized co-ordinates and momenta
In this course, we will start from the principle of stationary action (variational principle).
Textbooks:
1. Goldstein 2.
Taylor
3. Greiner
Liouville's theorem does not imply that every point along
a given path has the same
density. In other words,
suppose that two particles, A and B, follow the same trajectory,
except that particle
A leads particle B by a
fi
nite time (or equivalently, there is a
fi
nite
distance in phase space between the two particles). Particle
A could be in a region of
di
ff
erent density than particle B.
Liouville's theorem only holds in the limit that the particles are in
fi
nitely close together.
Equivalently, Liouville's theorem does not hold for any
ensemble that consists of a
fi
nite
number of particles; instead the theorem describes the probability
density in phase space
of an ensemble consisting of an in
fi
nite number of possible states.