General Physics I

GENERAL PHYSICS I (PHY 2020)

Prince George's Community College

Fall 2026

Classes will meet Monday and Wednesday evenings in Chesapeake Hall Room 305, beginning on Monday, August 17, 2026.
Homework #2 is due at 6:00pm on Monday, August 31, at 6:00 pm.
If you're interested in an internship with NASA, see this link: NASA Internships

To learn more about classical mechanics, I suggest:

An Introduction to Advanced Dynamics by S.W. McCuskey (Addison-Wesley, 1962). A clear and readable intermediate text, at about the college junior level.
Mechanics (3rd ed.) by Keith R. Symon. Another standard junior-level intermediate mechanics text.
Classical Mechanics by Herbert Goldstein (3rd ed.) (Addison-Wesley, 2001). The standard graduate-level text on advanced mechanics.

For some fun physics-related reading for the winter break, I suggest:

The Science of Interstellar by Kip Thorne and Christopher Nolan. Thorne is a well-known physicist who was involved in making the movie Interstellar from its beginning. In this book he and film director Nolan describe the physics shown in the movie.
Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku. A noted physicist discusses the possibility of time travel, force fields, invisibility cloaks, transporters, etc.
The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean. A very entertaining collection of stories surrounding the periodic table of the elements.
Mr. Tompkins in Paperback (and an updated version, The New World of Mr. Tompkins) by George Gamow. A famous Russian physicist wrote these stories of a world in which the speed of light is just 30 mph so relativistic effects are visible, and more stories of a world where Planck's constant is so large that quantum effects are visible.

Here's an interesting article on the physics of skipping stones from Physics Today: Water-Skipping Stones and Spheres

The 2025 Nobel prize for physics has been awarded to physicists John Clarke (USA), Michel H. Devoret (USA), and John M. Martinis (USA) “for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit.”

Dr. David G. Simpson:

http://www.pgccphy.net/2020

Webmaster: Dr. David G. Simpson
Page last updated: August 25, 2026.