Professorship for Computational Biology

Prof. Dr. Nadine Schwierz, Dr. Christian Wiebeler

Exercises for Theoretical Physics I (Bachelor Physics)

WS 2023/24 Sheet 1

Discussion in the week from 23rd to 27th of October.

Exercise 1: Separation of Variables

Investigate the differential equation

ẍ + 4x3 − 2x = 0

for the “coordinate” x(t) with the initial conditions ẋ(0) = 0 and x(0) = −1.

a) Show that the “energy” E = 12 ẋ2 + x4 − x2 does not depend on time t. Sketch the
“potential energy”.

b) Determine E for the given initial conditions.

c) Solve this first order differential equation based on the separation of variables.

Exercise 2: Friction

A particle moving in a gas or a liquid usually experiences a frictional force.

a) This force should increase linearly with its velocity, i. e. F~diss = −η~v . In addition, we
take into account gravity leading to the following equation of motion:

mz̈ = mg − η ż .

Use ż = v and solve the ordinary differential equation for the initial condition v(0) = v0 .
What do you obtain for v(t) in case of large times? Why?

b) Determine z(t) for the initial condition z(0) = z0 .

c) On Digicampus, you will find a Jupyter notebook and instructions on how to run these
notebooks. Follow these instructions to run the provided notebook and try out different
values for the friction.

d) Determine in analogy to a), but for F~diss = −µ|~v |~v , the temporal development of the
velocity, v(t), for the initial condition v(0) = 0. What do you obtain now for v(t → ∞)?

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Exercise 3: Vector Fields

This exercise is dedicated to refresh mathematical methods in the context of vector fields.

a) The vector field F~1 = −y~ex + x~ey + z~ez is given. Make a schematic drawing for z = 0
and calculate curl(F~1 ) = ∇× F~1 . Does a potential exist with F~1 = −grad(U1 ) = −∇U1 ?

b) The statement about the existence of such a potential can also be checked based on the
two line integrals Z Z
~
F1 · d~r and F~1 · d~r.
C1 C2

The first path C1 goes from (0, 0, 0) over (1, 0, 0) to (1, 1, 0), the second one shares the
same starting and end point, but goes through (0,1,0). Is this result consistent with
the insights from a?

c) Investigate the path independence also in cylindrical coordinates. For this calculate
the line intregal along the closed line C3 , which is defined by a circle in the x-y plane
with radius R and its center in the origin. First show that
I Z 2π
~
F1 · d~r = (F~1 · ~eφ )Rdφ.
C3 0

d) Now the vector field F~2 = −x~ex − y~ey − z~ez is given. Make a schematic drawing for
z = 0 and show that it possesses a potential.

e) Determine the potential U2 (x, y, z), which fulfills F~2 = −∇U2 with U2 (0, 0, 0) = 0. For
the integration, you can use an appropriate path of your choice.