Keplerian Ellipses
The physics of the gravitational two-body problem| By: | Bruce Cameron Reed |
| Publisher: | Ingram Publisher Services UK- Academic |
| Print ISBN: | 9781643274676 |
| eText ISBN: | 1731643274690 |
| Edition: | 1 |
| Format: | Reflowable |
eBook Features
Instant Access
Purchase and read your book immediately
Read Offline
Access your eTextbook anytime and anywhere
Study Tools
Built-in study tools like highlights and more
Read Aloud
Listen and follow along as Bookshelf reads to you
The development of man's understanding of planetary motions is the crown jewel of Newtonian mechanics. This book offers a concise but self-contained handbook-length treatment of this historically important topic for students at about the third-year-level of an undergraduate physics curriculum. After opening with a review of Kepler’s three laws of planetary motion, it proceeds to analyze the general dynamics of “central force” orbits in spherical coordinates, how elliptical orbits satisfy Newton’s gravitational law and how the geometry of ellipses relates to physical quantities such as energy and momentum. Exercises are provided and derivations are set up in such a way that readers can gain analytic practice by filling in missing steps. A brief bibliography lists sources for readers who wish to pursue further study on their own.