Our department doesn't offer a standard physics major (by administrative
decree) but we are offering a biophysics major (with mostly excellent
premed students). Instead of a more traditional Dynamics or Mechanics
course beyond General Physics I am currently teaching a course titled Human
Body Dynamics out of a book by that name authored by Aydin Tozeren. It was
published in 2000 by Springer-Verlag. It covers many of the traditional
mechanics topics but in the context of Human dynamics. We very quickly
realize that even seemingly simple problems can become very nasty but we
are having fun with it. We are using mathcad estensively for calculations
and symbolic manipulation.
Have you done a course like this? If so i would like to get your feedback
on texts used and activities done experimentally etc.
Right now since the Olympics have just pas I have assigned the students to
use digitized video to analyze some of the human dynamics as observed in
the Olympics coverage which I recorded pieces of. In particular, I
recorded figure skating, speed skating races and aerial maneuver
skiing. Also snowboarding. Have any of you tried to this sort of
analysis? If so, what worked and what sort of analysis suggestions do you
have?
Ivan Rouse, Physics Professor
Physics Department, La Sierra University
4700 Pierce St., Riverside, CA 92515
email: irouse@lasierra.edu
phone: 909-785-2137, FAX 909-785-2215
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