1
 Unit A
Space, time and motion
INTRODUCTION
This unit deals with Classical Mechanics. The basic concepts that we will use include position in space, displacement (change in position), mass, velocity, acceleration, force, momentum, energy and of course time. These concepts, the relations between them and the laws they give rise to are discussed in the first five chapters. This incredible structure that began with Newton's work detailed in his Principia is also called Newtonian Mechanics. The Newtonian view of the world has passed every conceivable experimental test both on a local terrestrial scale as well as on a much larger scale when it is applied to the motion of celestial bodies. It is the theory upon which much of engineering is based with daily practical applications. Of course, no theory of Physics can be considered âcorrectâ no matter how many experimental tests it passes. The possibility always exists that new phenomena, new observations and new experiments may lead to discrepancies with the theory. In that case it may be necessary to modify the theory or even abandon it completely in favour of a new theory that explains the old as well as the new phenomena.
This is the case, too, with Newtonian Mechanics. In chapterÂ 6 of this unit we will see that the Newtonian concepts of space and time need to be revised in situations where the speeds involved approach the speed of light. This is not to say that Newtonian Mechanics is useless; the theory of relativity that replaces it, does becomes Newtonian Mechanics in the limit of speeds that are small compared to that of light. Laws that have been derived with Newtonian Mechanics such as the conservation of energy, the conservation of momentum and the conservation of angular momentum also hold in the theories that replace Newtonian Mechanics. There is another limit in which Newtonian Mechanics is unable to describe observed phenomena. This is the physics on a very small, atomic and nuclear scale. At these scales Newtonian Mechanics fails completely to describe the observed phenomena and needs to be replaced by a new theory, Quantum Mechanics.