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CDS 205

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med_citlogogrey

CDS 205 -- Spring 2005
Third Term

Geometric Mechanics

Prerequisites: CDS 202, CDS 140

The geometry and dynamics of Lagrangian and Hamiltonian systems, including symplectic and Poisson manifolds, variational principles, Lie groups, momentum maps, rigid-body dynamics, Euler-Poincaré equations, stability, and an introduction to reduction theory. More advanced topics will include (taught in a course the following year) reduction theory, fluid dynamics, the energy momentum method, geometric phases, bifurcation theory for mechanical systems, and nonholonomic systems. Instructor: Marsden. Given in alternate years; offered 2004–05.



Lectures

TTh 10:30 - 12 noon; 104 Watson



Instructor

Jerrold Marsden
Steele 119,
email: marsden

Office hours:
(by appointment)

Teaching Assistants

Harish Bhat
email: bhat@cds.caltech.edu
office hours: Thursday 3-4 pm, Broad Cafe.

Nawaf Bou-Rabee
email: nawaf@acm.caltech.edu
Office hours: Tuesday 3-4 pm, Firestone 216


Announcements

  • A tentative schedule for Student Presentations has been posted online. We hope to see everyone bright and early at 9:30 AM sharp on Tuesday, May 31st in Watson 104.

  • Please email talks (in PDF format) to Harish by Monday night (May 30th) so that we can check that the presentation opens up fine on his laptop. There will be an absolute maximum of 15 minutes for each presentation. Please allot some time for questions!

  • Course projects are due on Friday, June 3rd at 5 pm. Both paper and electronic copies are due at that time.

  • Project format (paper copy): Please print out your final project write-up and place it in the CDS 202 mailbox in Steele. Note: we have been lax about enforcing deadlines for homeworks, but we will strictly enforce the June 3rd, 5 pm deadline.

  • Project format (electronic copy): Please send TeX/LaTeX or PostScript/PDF files to both Teaching Assistants whose email addresses are given above.

  • Note: both paper and electronic copies are required. Handing in only one version is unacceptable.

  • In addition to the write-up, figures and movies associated with your project are also welome. Please make sure such files are in commonly available formats, suitable for posting on this web site. Also, please use common sense when producing figures: label axes, include legends, write descriptive captions, etc. You don't want us to guess what you are trying to show.

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