An interactive, open-access Mechanics & Special Relativity textbook designed for physics students at the bachelor level.
The complete interactive textbook will be available at https://interactivetextbooks.tudelft.nl/mecharela once it is published through our university's library. but is currently available here
This textbook is suited for university level physics students with a basic prior knowledge on physics, often taught in secondary education.
- Interactive Learning: Embedded python applets and simulations provide hands-on experience with physics concepts
- Modern Design: Built using Jupyter Book 2.0 for an engaging digital experience
- Open Access: Freely available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license (unless stated otherwise)
The book covers the following chapters:
Mechanics
- Newton's laws
- Work & Energy
- Angular Momentum, Torque & Central Forces
- Conservation Laws & Galilean Transformations
- Oscillations
- Collisions
Special Relativity
7. Lorentz Transformation
8. Velocity Transformation
9. Spacetime and 4vectors
10. 4-Momentum
11. Relativistic dynamics and collisions
This repository contains the source files for building the interactive textbook using Jupyter Book 2.0.
- Python 3.7+
- Jupyter Book 2.0 or MystMD
├──┐ myst.yml # Jupyter Book configuration & Table of contents
├── index.md # landing page
├──┐ content/
├── credits.md # Book introduction
├──┐ classic/
├── ... # Chapters on classical mechanics
├──┐ special
├── ... # Chapters on special relativity
├──┐ images/
├── ... # images
├── raw/ # svg and python
├──┐ pysim/
├── ... # python simulations
This book was created by a team of lecturers from the Delft Institute of Applied Mathematics at TU Delft University of Technology.
We welcome contributions to improve this textbook! Please feel free to:
- Report issues or suggest improvements
- Provide feedback on the interactive elements
This book is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, unless stated otherwise.
You are free to:
- Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
- Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any non-commercial purpose provided proper attribution is given.
All python simulations and scripts are licensed under CC0, meaning these can be used without limitations and attribution.
For questions about this textbook, please contact Freek Pols.
TU Delft | Faculty of Appled Sciences
