Most of the dynamics you have met in the course so far has been concerned with the motion of infinitisemally small`point particles'. However realistic day-to-day objects have some finite size. This project aims to study the motion of such `rigid' bodies. The classical motion of rigid bodies is very elegantly described in terms of Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formulation of mechanics introduced in Mathematical Physics II.

The project can be developed in several directions, such as precession of the planets, or the Kovaleskaya Top, a beautiful example of an `integrable system' developed by Sonia Kovalevskaya in the nineteenth century. Another direction which it might be interesting to explore is the quantum mechanical top or `rigid rotator' which describes molecular dynamics, or how the seemingly magical `Magnetic Levitron' top floats in space, which involves understanding how top dynamics interacts with a magnetic field.