Monthly Archives: February 2015

Double pendulum roller coaster FIXED

Posted on February 28, 2015 by Andy Rundquist

My last post was wrong. I’m to blame. But in thinking about it and talking about it with with lots of helpful friends I ended up learning a ton. Here’s the upshot: There were kinks in the roller coaster loop … Continue reading →

Posted in mathematica, physics | 7 Comments

Double pendulum roller coaster

Posted on February 26, 2015 by Andy Rundquist

EDIT: SEE THE NEXT POST THAT FIXES A MAJOR MISTAKE IN THIS ONE I’ve been doing a lot of modeling of beads on wires lately, but today I discovered something that really surprised me. The surprise came when I found … Continue reading →

Posted in mathematica, physics | 8 Comments

Lagrange multipliers revisited

Posted on February 25, 2015 by Andy Rundquist

I spent the last few days trying to decide whether to teach Lagrange multipliers in my Theoretical Mechanics course. Ultimately I decided to go ahead and do it and I wanted to get down my thoughts on why and what … Continue reading →

Posted in mathematica, physics, syllabus creation, teaching | 2 Comments

Setting up oral exams

Posted on February 23, 2015 by Andy Rundquist

I’m teaching Theoretical Mechanics this term and next week we have the first set of oral exams. Each student will take 9 oral exams, but each will only be five minutes long. With only 13 students in the course, each … Continue reading →

Posted in oral exams, syllabus creation | 6 Comments