Mechanics

Mechanics Notes for UPSC CSE/ IAS

Hey aspirants! Are you preparing for the UPSC CSE/IAS exam with physics optional and looking for some valuable resources to enhance your preparation? Look no further as Quantum IAS is offering free access to high-quality mechanics notes for the physics optional paper. These notes also include previous year questions to give you an idea of the exam pattern. With these mechanics notes, you can enrich your UPSC preparation and improve your chances of acing the exam. The content provided in these notes is comprehensive and well-researched, which will help you write well-informed and well-structured answers in the physics optional paper. So, what are you waiting for? Grab this opportunity to get your hands on these mechanics notes for free and give your UPSC CSE/IAS exam preparation the much-needed boost!

Topics, as listed in Upsc physics optional syllabus for mechanics section, are

(a) Mechanics of Particles:

Laws of motion; conservation of energy and momentum, applications to rotating frames, centripetal and Coriolis accelerations; Motion under a central force; Conservation of angular momentum, Kepler’s laws; Fields and potentials; Gravitational field and potential due to spherical bodies, Gauss and Poisson equations, gravitational self-energy; Two-body problem; Reduced mass; Rutherford scattering; Centre of mass and laboratory reference frames.

(b) Mechanics of Rigid Bodies:

System of particles; Centre of mass, angular momentum, equations of motion; Conservation theorems for energy, momentum and angular momentum; Elastic and inelastic collisions; Rigid body; Degrees of freedom, Euler’s theorem, angular velocity, angular momentum, moments of inertia, theorems of parallel and perpendicular axes, equation of motion for rotation; Molecular rotations (as rigid bodies); Di and tri-atomic molecules; Processional motion; top, gyroscope.

(c) Mechanics of Continuous Media:

Elasticity, Hooke’s law and elastic constants of isotropic solids and their inter-relation; Streamline (Laminar) flow, viscosity, Poiseuille’s equation, Bernoulli’s equation, Stokes’ law and applications.

(d) Special Relativity:

Michelson-Morley experiment and its implications; Lorentz transformations-length contraction, time dilation, addition of relativistic velocities, aberration and Doppler effect, mass-energy relation, simple applications to a decay process; Four-dimensional momentum vector; Covariance of equations of physics.