Rotational Dynamics

We have already seen the quantum mechanical treatment of angular momentum and rotational dynamics. In this section we study these subjects in a classical non-relativistic context. We first define the concepts of torque and angular momentum in order to understand the rotational motion of a single particle. We then extend our analysis to the situation in which we have many particles. We are particularly interested in how angular momentum works under these circumstances. We first consider a system of two particles. We then extend what we have learned to an arbitrary number of particles.

Before we begin, we need to extend our knowledge of vectors to the cross product.