[Note: There's a neat video below the fold. ]
A Confession
I was recently rereading the Feynman Lectures on Physics. If you haven't read them lately, I highly recommend them. Feynman is always a pleasure to read. As usual, I was surprised. This time the surprise came in lecture 9, which the way the course was laid out meant that this was something like the last lecture in the third week that these students had ever received of university level physics.The lecture is on Newton's laws of dynamics. The start is of course Newton's
\[ F = \frac{d }{dt } (mv ) \]
which, provided the mass is constant takes the more familiar form
\[ F = ma \]
After discussing the meaning of the equation and how in general it can give you a set of equations to solve, he naturally uses an example to illustrate the kinds of problems you can solve.
What system does he choose to use as the first illustration of a dynamical system?
