Introduction:

The universe is a dangerous place for us space explorers. To give you a fighting chance to survive the journey, we will discuss some basic mechanics, the law of gravity, astronomy, and other necessary physics. More importantly, since the laws of the universe are written in the language of mathematics, we need to go through some basic calculus (don’t be afraid, my friend) and elementary differential equations (now you can panic a little bit). We will also introduce you with the concept of scientific modelling, and learn to use computer to numerically solve problems (we will not use HAL 9000, for those of you who are worried). By the end of our course, you will be well equipped to apply the new tools to tackle a wide range of problems.

Some of you probably have never learned calculus before. While it could be intimidating at first, you can still do it if you put in effort. Some hands-on examples in our course should get you up to speed.

Now buckle up, and we will get started!

對我們這些太空探索者來說，宇宙是一個很危險的地方。為求讓你有能力完成旅程，我們會討論一些基本的力學、重力定律、天文學和其他必要的物理原理。更重要的是，宇宙的定律是用數學語言寫成的，因此我們需要進行學習一些基本的微積分（請不要太擔心......）和簡單的微分方程（你現可以有些少許恐慌了）。我們亦將會介紹科學建模的概念，並學習使用電腦來解決問題（放心，我們不會使用HAL 9000）。在課程結束時，你將會有能力應用這些新的工具來處理各種問題。

你們當中有些人可能從未學過微積分。這課題在初學時可能真的的嚇人的，但只要你付出努力，仍然可以學到。而且在課程中的實際操作示例應該能使你快速上手。

好！現在就扣好安全帶，讓我們開始！