ABSTRACT
From our daily contact with the physical world, we gradually acquire a strong intuition as to how objects around us would behave. These are objects which we can examine directly through our senses and some simple instruments are known as classical systems. Typically a classical system consists of a number of particles. This chapter discusses a number of guiding principles of the behaviour of classical systems. A system may consist of a single particle. More complex systems can be built up from a finite number of particles. The studies of such systems, known as discrete systems, lead to a large body of theories known as classical mechanics. The properties of a discrete classical system are intuitively meaningful and their existence is taken for granted. These properties can be given a mathematical description. There is an underling objective reality and our task is to describe and to reveal such reality.
