softmatter:Newtonian Dynamics

From NSDL Materials Digital Library Soft Matter Wiki

Systems with Newtonian dynamics evolve according to Newton's equations of motion. Because there is no randomness associated with newtonian dynamics, systems with Newtonian dynamics are deterministic. That is, given a set of initial conditions, the system follows exactly one trajectory in phase space. Objects need not be "physical" to evolve via Newtonian dynamics. Rather, masses, forces, velocities and positions can be associated with any arbitrary object, whether real and physical such as a particle, or a purely mathematical such as a Nose-Hoover thermostat or the coefficients matrix in CPMD.