A Jr/Sr Mechanics/Dynamics textbook from Oxford University Press, updating how we teach undergraduate physics majors with increased relevance for physics careers in changing times.

Additional materials, class notes and examples to go with the textbook Introduction to Modern Dynamics: Chaos, Networks, Space and Time (Oxford University Press, 2019).

The best parts of physics are the last topics that our students ever see.  These are the exciting new frontiers of nonlinear and complex systems that are at the forefront of university research and are the basis of many of our high-tech businesses.  Topics such as traffic on the World Wide Web, the spread of epidemics through globally-mobile populations, or the synchronization of global economies are governed by universal principles just as profound as Newton’s laws.  Nonetheless, the conventional university physics curriculum reserves most of these topics for advanced graduate study.  Two justifications are given for this situation: first, that the mathematical tools needed to understand these topics are beyond the skill set of undergraduate students, and second, that these are specialty topics with no common theme and little overlap.

 

Introduction to Modern Dynamics: Chaos, Networks, Space and Time dispels these myths.  The structure of this book combines the three main topics of modern dynamics—chaos theory, dynamics on complex networks and the geometry of dynamical spaces—into a coherent framework.  By taking a geometric view of physics, concentrating on the time evolution of physical systems as trajectories through abstract spaces, these topics share a common and simple mathematical language with which any student can gain a unified physical intuition. Given the growing importance of complex dynamical systems in many areas of science and technology, this text provides students with an up-to-date foundation for their future careers.