Product Description
John Taylor has brought to his new book, Classical Mechanics, all of the clarity and insight that made his Introduction to Error Analysis a best-selling text.Classical Mechanics is intended for students who have studied some mechanics in an introductory physics course, such as "freshman physics."With unusual clarity, the book covers most of the topics normally found in books at this level, including conservation laws, oscillations, Lagrangian mechanics, two-body problems, non-inertial frames, rigid bodies, normal modes, chaos theory, Hamiltonian mechanics, and continuum mechanics.A particular highlight is the chapter on chaos, which focuses on a few simple systems, to give a truly comprehensible introduction to the concepts that we hear so much about.At the end of each chapter is a large selection of interesting problems for the student, 744 in all, classified by topic and approximate difficulty, and ranging for simple exercises to challenging computer projects. Already in its Second Printing, Taylor's Classical Mechanics is a thorough and very readable introduction to a subject that is four hundred years old but as exciting today as ever. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (18)

Conceptual and pleasant to read
I do recommend this book due to its simplicity and easy language understanding. The solved exercises can give you an wider idea about the model (equations) usage. It is not boring and on the contrary, most of the times you want to speed up your reading to acquire new knowledges. The only suggestion is to increase the quantity of solved problems and inform the results of the proposed exercises. The book "classical mechanics" covers most of themes related; being each chapter properly designed.

Classical Mechanics Book
I needed this text for a class. It arrived in a reasonable amount of time and in excellent condition. Thank you!

Best textbook I've ever read
In all my 7 years so far studying university-level physics (undergrad & grad), this textbook has easily been the best textbook I have ever used (for any subject, even counting non-physics courses). And this is true despite my personal aversion to classical mechanics. The textbook is simply amazing - the writing is so clear and understandable.

Classical Mechanics/John Taylor Physics Textbook Review
Thanks a lot!

This textbook by Taylor is a great studying manual for Classical Mechanics, a very essential textbook for any aspiring physics major.

The book arrived new and perfect, like said.

It was shipped very quickly also.

Once again, thank you for your perfection.

We should never settle for anything less.

;)

Kevin.

Good Book
Taylor's Classical Mechanics is both insightful and detailed.The content can be a bit dry, but it's physics.I keep it nearby as a ready reference when I'm studying and doing homework. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (3)

Dreadful
Bought the book based upon the glowing reviews and got burned.

The book employs cryptic notation and lacks examples. It makes the simplest concepts confusing.

If you are a physics professor and already know the subject inside and out and want a book to torment students with -- this book is the one.

A very nice classic book.
I just bought this wonderful book recently for my recent theoretical mechanics course and I must say its a jewel. Although its not in the same level as Goldstein's classical text book (a long and very precise description of classical mechanics), Corben's book examines with Dover-like detail the basic concepts surrounding the laws basic physics (everything, from Lagrange's equations to rigid body systems). Packed with useful examples (most of them textbook like motions in a central force field), Corben's "Classical Mechanics" is a great reference in any intermediate course.

Review of Classical Mechanics by Corben and Stehle
Although there have been several excellent intermediate and graduate textbooks on classical mechanics written during the last few decades, this book, which is pitched at the advanced undergraduate/beginning graduatelevel, is one of the best.The writing throughout is mathematically lucid,and the problems, though not large in number, are stimulating.While theimportant topics of advanced theoretical mechanices are not shorted,several interesting related subjects in general physics and theoreticalengineering are concisely treated. ... Read more

Product Description
For thirty years this has been the acknowledged standard in advanced classical mechanics courses. This classic book enables readers to make connections between classical and modern physics - an indispensable part of a physicist's education. In this new edition, Beams Medal winner Charles Poole and John Safko have updated the book to include the latest topics, applications, and notation, to reflect today's physics curriculum. They introduce readers to the increasingly important role that nonlinearities play in contemporary applications of classical mechanics. New numerical exercises help readers to develop skills in how to use computer techniques to solve problems in physics. Mathematical techniques are presented in detail so that the book remains fully accessible to readers who have not had an intermediate course in classical mechanics.For college instructors and students. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (27)

Excellent experience
The book was in excellent condition as described by the seller. The delivery was prompt. All in all, a very good experience and no regrets about going with this seller again. I would recommend it to anyone.

very good
Although there exists some minor errors in the text, the general quaulity is very good. I hope the price can be somehow lower.

REALLY boring
Theere are lots of fun books on classical mechanics, which is a beautiful subject. This is not one of them -- I found it eye-glazingly tedious as an undergraduate, and still do. For the aforementioned fun books, check out Landau and Lifschitz, or Sommerfeld, or (of course) Feynmann.

Once a great textbook
This book is great for learning the topic for the first time, and even better once you're looking for a good reference at a later time. It goes very deeply into the physics and philosophy of classical mechanics. The only background needed is vector calculus. The rest should flow naturally. If you don't understand everything on the first read, as some reviewers mentioned, this is not really a problem. This often happens with advanced textbooks, the authors know so much that they can't help but write discussions that are of a more general nature. In the case of Goldstein, you should be able to keep on reading without getting lost. This book is amazing, it covers point-particle physics up to continuum mechanics, and builds everything up to a point where you can go on a and study relativity and quantum mechanics with good confidence.

I would give this book 6 stars if I could. However, the 3rd edition has turned what used to be an excellent book into some kind of butchery and orgy or less relevant topics. For example, very few people doing research actually care about chaos theory, aside from its coolness. While I learned this stuff from a mathematically rigorous standpoint decades ago, I never got to use it since then. Also I find it difficult to discuss chaos theory when stochastic processes are ignored. When doing experiments, you always deal with noise which will actually bury a lot of the interesting dynamics.I really don't see the point of altering Goldstein to cover chaos theory when several excellent textbooks on the topic already exist (Arnold, Devaney, Scheinermann).

I bought the 3rd edition without knowing about its new slant. At the very least, they should have kept what was in the 2nd edition. Instead, they deleted entire sections which I used to love, such as the derivation of the Lagrangian density for an acoustic field (Appendix E). It's totally gone! I am no longer using the 3rd edition copy, and would consider selling it or getting rid of it. I am much better off with my 2nd edition copy.

Excellent
An outstandingly good quality book, both in content and in the book itself. Very satisfied. ... Read more

Product Description
This textbook covers all the standard introductory topics in classical mechanics, including Newton's laws, oscillations, energy, momentum, angular momentum, planetary motion, and special relativity. It also explores more advanced topics, such as normal modes, the Lagrangian method, gyroscopic motion, fictitious forces, 4-vectors, and general relativity.It contains more than 250 problems with detailed solutions so students can easily check their understanding of the topic. There are also over 350 unworked exercises which are ideal for homework assignments. Password protected solutions are available to instructors at www.cambridge.org/9780521876223. The vast number of problems alone makes it an ideal supplementary text for all levels of undergraduate physics courses in classical mechanics. Remarks are scattered throughout the text, discussing issues that are often glossed over in other textbooks, and it is thoroughly illustrated with more than 600 figures to help demonstrate key concepts. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Excellent text
The following I would like to not go unsaid about this book:

1) The prose is casual and clever.
2) Surprisingly: the disarming prose does not compromise the organization of the principles and material, as I feel Griffiths' texts unfortunately do.
3) Speaking of Griffiths: Morin's problems are just as inviting of creativity (as Griffiths: the principle strength, I feel, of his texts) and encourage real "thinking outside the box" as Griffiths. They are challenging and provoke deep thought, drawing forth the depths of the reader's creativity.
4) The unique addition of physics-limericks: I find them strolling into my mind while poring over a difficult problem. They are funny (or annoying if you are looking for The Way To the Answer amidst equation-jungles (Morin's text does not appear to me as an uninformative equation-jungle)). They actually help reinforce the principles well, and succinctly describe some profound physical-principles.
5) The inclusion of problem-solving advice, and good habits to get into if you want to be a physicist. On that note: I recommend a read of this text even if you've thoroughly-completed your classical mechanics sequence. Morin encourages checking of the limiting case, examining your solution, etc., and other habits that are "in the spirit" of physics.

Conclusion: this text is rich, fun to read, inviting of creativity, brimming with clever and informative prose, and will help you be a better physicist. Best of all: plenty of good physics-habits are taught by this book that are beyond the scope of classical mechanics. My heartfelt recommendation.

Another "I'm smarter than you" textbook
At first I thought this book was going to offer a lot of insight into the world of mechanics - wrong. The condescending tone in the preface should have sounded several alarms. I guess I should feel honored that I can use the same book that my future masters at Harvard are using. It is nice that many of the problems include some obscure trick in mathematics in order to solve them. I'll admit that the ways the problems are solved are pretty clever; however, there is often no rhyme or reason why a certain approach was used.I have spent several hours working only to find out that I made a "wrong" assumption in an unrealistic problem. This book is pretty discouraging and probably shouldn't be used as a textbook unless you have David Morin as a professor (see 5 star ratings).

Great resource for classical mechanics!
I have taken two physics classes taught by Dr. Morin.The first class was introductory mechanics which is covered in this textbook.The explanations are clear and the problems are abundant.The best feature of this book is definitely the worked exercises at the end of each chapter.The most important lesson I learned from the class is that in order to learn physics, one must solve lots of problems.

[...]

A very great textbook
I bought this as a textbook for my class. Everything is very clearly explaned and I have not found a tiny mistake.

Worst Book Ever Written on the Subject
(If I could, I would've given this book a negative infinity...)

I've been forced to use this terrible book for my upper division, undergraduate classical mechanics course and it is by far the worst book I've ever seen, read, or heard of. The author spends one sentence on Lagrange multipliers, and less than two pages on constraints. In the entire book, he writes more limericks than explanations. The problems are then nothing like the examples he does in explicit detail.

I had to ultimately not use this book when doing the problems from the book. I've used half a dozen other graduate level classical mechanics texts to compensate for the terrible presentation of material from this poor excuse of a textbook.

The text spends an unbearable amount of time on Newtonian mechanics. We spent the first quarter save the last two weeks on Newtonian mechanics...and the scope of the course was to introduce Lagrangian mechanics, not review Newtonian mechanics applied to neurotic examples!

The "proof" of Noether's theorem is a joke, and the author doesn't even mention one of the most critical facts of Lagrangian mechanics: two Lagrangians can differ by a total time derivative. That is not mentioned anywhere in the book.

The "derivation" of Lagrangian mechanics is nonexistent, it is just "God given". Most unsatisfying, every other text I've seen has derived it from D'Alembert's principle from statics.

Lagrange should be rolling in his grave at an angular velocity that would power all of Europe. His original text, "Analytical Mechanics", written in the eighteenth century is by far an infinitely superior introduction to Lagrangian mechanics than this wretched textbook.

A lot of the book seems like magic, not because it's so amazing how the material is presented, but because of a lack of ANY presentation. Everything is "God given", which makes the reader feel incredibly stupid when he or she cannot figure out why this or that constraint works but some other doesn't work. Adding insult to injury, the questions are difficult not because they are hard but because they are poorly worded. My study group spends more time parsing the questions than actually solving the questions.

So to summarize:

If you are a professor, AVOID THIS BOOK AT ALL COSTS! If you are a student, AVOID THIS BOOK AT ALL COSTS! ... Read more

Product Description

This book constructs the mathematical apparatus of classical mechanics from the beginning, examining basic problems in dynamics like the theory of oscillations and the Hamiltonian formalism. The author emphasizes geometrical considerations and includes phase spaces and flows, vector fields, and Lie groups. Discussion includes qualitative methods of the theory of dynamical systems and of asymptotic methods like averaging and adiabatic invariance.

Customer Reviews (12)

Wonderful
This book is an excellent introduction to the world of classical physics for NON-PHYSICISTS.While some physicists will no doubt find it accessible, there is considerable reduction of physical concepts in order to get to the heart of the ideas underlying the formalism.Also, the material goes beyond what most physicists (non-theoreticians) will find practical.

He focuses largely on a geometric presentation, in the language of differential geometry, symplectic geometry, differential forms, Riemannian manifolds and includes a large amount of algebraic necessities.This is not a cookbook for learning how to solve classical mechanics, nor is it a math book per se, but it is a wonderful collection of introductions to a vast amount of useful mathematical formalism that permeates the physical literature.I would strongly recommend it to someone needing a thorough supplementary mechanics text, one that relies on very little physical insight and focuses on the geometric and algebraic structures underlying them.

The chapters are very well self-contained for the most part so you can skip to topics you find more appealing without feeling lost.Also, his presentation style is very clever, in case you're a fan of quick thinking and novel presentations (who isn't?).

The prerequisites are familiarity with somewhat advanced calculus and "mathematical maturity".Basic knowledge of group theory would also make it an easier read.

A unique, masterful and enjoyable book for graduate student in physics
The book is full of little enjoyable details (jewels). Arnold is one of the few mathematicians which approaches problems with a very geometric point of view. In his interview with S.H. Lui he mentions how algebraic picture has dominated the research in mathematics and how he has tried to counter that. One can see the trace of his ingenuity all over this book. What some may call as handwaving in math circles is indeed called as physical (or geometric) intuition in physics community and is being actively encouraged.

The chapters on oscillations (chap. 5) and perturbation theory (chap. 10) are very instructive. For example, parametric resonance is discussed concisely in chapter 5 which you won't be able to find it anywhere else. where can you learn about "Arnold's tongues" better than in Arnold's book?

There are so many appendices at the end of the book. They are often very specialized and I don't recommend you to read them on your first read.

In conclusion, I recommend this book to any physics graduate student. In fact, I hope one day it will be used as a text book for courses in classical mechanics.

I would recommend foundations of mechanics by Marsden
I have to admit that I haven't thoroughly read through this text. But judging from the first 10 pages, there is a lot of mathematical handwaving. In contrast, foundations of mechanics (hereafter FOM) is far superior in that it provides all the necessary background beyond calculus and linear algebra to the reader, and is logically consistent so far in my reading. I want to mention that there are certainly complete and excellent texts out there on functional analysis, differential geometry, and topology, but many texts include way more stuff than you would want to know. In particular, it is my humble opinion that once you get to a certain point of knowledgeability of a subject like algebraic topology, you have enough of a taste for it that to learn more of the subject would only help if you were to go into research. Therefore a book like FOM provides a concise and practical treatment of those various advanced mathematics topics.

Best book on CM
Best book on CM (based most on symplectic formulation). Extremely clear if one has enough patience to follow exactly the author's way and to work out the proposed stimulating problems. Contains an original way of introducing differential forms, integration of differential forms and homology/De Rahm's thm.: you fully get in the subject in few pages ! The first part does not make use of symplectic formalism but is also quite original and stimulating. The level is last yr. undergr. 1st yr. graduate. Very useful if used with E. ott (Chaos in Dynamical Systems) for studying nonlinear dynamics.

Encyclopedic
Extremely stimulating, uses Galileo to motivate Newton's laws instead of postulating them. Treatment of Bertrand's theorem is beautiful, but contains one error (took me 2 years before I realized where..). However, I know of only one physicist who successully worked out all the missing steps and taught from this book. I know mathematicians who have cursed it. I used/use it for inspiration. The treatment of Liouville's integrability theorem, I found too abstract, found the old version in Whittaker's Analytical Dynamics to be clearer (Arnol'd might laugh sarcastically at this claim!)--for an interesting variation, but more from the standpoint of continuous groups, see the treatment in ch. 16 of my Classical Mechanics (Cambridge, 1997). In my text I do not restrict the discussion of integrability/nonintegrability to Hamiltonian systems but include driven dissipative systems as well. Another strength of Arnol'd: his discussion of caustics, useful for the study of galaxy formation (as I later learned while doing work in cosmology). Also, I learned from Arnol'd that Poisson brackets are not restricted to canonical systems (see also my ch. 15). I guess that every researcher in nonlinear dynamics should study Arnol'd's books, he's the 'alte Hasse' in the field. ... Read more

Product Description
This is the fifth edition of a well-established textbook. It is intended to provide a thorough coverage of the fundamental principles and techniques of classical mechanics, an old subject that is at the base of all of physics, but in which there has also in recent years been rapid development. The book is aimed at undergraduate students of physics and applied mathematics. It emphasizes the basic principles, and aims to progress rapidly to the point of being able to handle physically and mathematically interesting problems, without getting bogged down in excessive formalism. Lagrangian methods are introduced at a relatively early stage, to get students to appreciate their use in simple contexts. Later chapters use Lagrangian and Hamiltonian methods extensively, but in a way that aims to be accessible to undergraduates, while including modern developments at the appropriate level of detail. The subject has been developed considerably recently while retaining a truly central role for all students of physics and applied mathematics.

This edition retains all the main features of the fourth edition, including the two chapters on geometry of dynamical systems and on order and chaos, and the new appendices on conics and on dynamical systems near a critical point. The material has been somewhat expanded, in particular to contrast continuous and discrete behaviours. A further appendix has been added on routes to chaos (period-doubling) and related discrete maps. The new edition has also been revised to give more emphasis to specific examples worked out in detail.

Key features of the new edition include:

• Further development of the chapters on dynamical systems and their geometry, and on order and chaos, introduced in the fourth edition.
• Examples with solutions in the text, supplementing the wide range of problems with answers.
• Appendices on vectors, on conic sections, on dynamical systems near a critical point and, new in this edition, on routes to chaos and related discrete maps.
• Emphasis on basic principles of wide applicability.
• End-of-chapter summaries.
• A comprehensive index and list of symbols.

Classical Mechanics is written for undergraduate students of physics or applied mathematics.It assumes some basic prior knowledge of the fundamental concepts and reasonable familiarity with elementary differential and integral calculus. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Amazing
Received the book in a timely manner.The picture is exactly what I got and everything was in the condition stated when the purchase was made.Overall, good transaction.

An elegant and delight treatise on C. M.
I've just finished up to Chapter 4 and
everything I read is excellent. It has
very good reviews of vectors and tensors
in the appendix. Answers to the exercises
are also provided.

Great book for those needing a good physics reference
This book covers a huge amount of classic physics techniques and theories.I bought it for the Hamiltonian section but I really like reading it.Note - I am not a physicist but I have a masters in math and do a lot ofreading for amusement in physics of all kinds. ... Read more

Product Description
This text provides a pedagogical tour through mechanics from Newton to Einstein with detailed explanations and a large number of worked examples. From the very beginning relativity is kept in mind, along with its relation to concepts of basic mechanics, such as inertia, escape velocity, Newton's potential, Kepler motion and curvature. The Lagrange and Hamilton formalisms are treated in detail, and extensive applications to central forces and rigid bodies are presented. After consideration of the motivation of relativity, the essential tensor calculus is developed, and thereafter Einstein's equation is solved for special cases with explicit presentation of calculational steps.The combined treatment of classical mechanics and relativity thus enables the reader to see the connection between Newton's gravitational potential, Kepler motion and Einstein's corrections, as well as diverse aspects of mechanics. The text addresses students and others pursuing a course in classical mechanics, as well as those interested in a detailed course on relativity. ... Read more

Product Description
This textbook takes an innovative approach to the teaching of classical mechanics, emphasizing the development of general but practical intellectual tools to support the analysis of nonlinear Hamiltonian systems. The development is organized around a progressively more sophisticated analysis of particular natural systems and weaves examples throughout the presentation. Explorations of phenomena such as transitions to chaos, nonlinear resonances, and resonance overlap to help the student to develop appropriate analytic tools for understanding. Computational algorithms communicate methods used in the analysis of dynamical phenomena. Expressing the methods of mechanics in a computer language forces them to be unambiguous and computationally effective. Once formalized as a procedure, a mathematical idea also becomes a tool that can be used directly to compute results.The student actively explores the motion of systems through computer simulation and experiment. This active exploration is extended to the mathematics. The requirement that the computer be able to interpret any expression provides strict and immediate feedback as to whether an expression is correctly formulated. The interaction with the computer uncovers and corrects many deficiencies in understanding. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

You need Linux to use software
Would give zero stars, but it is not possible. To use the book, you need specific version of Scheme language with specific library. These are available only for Linux or MacOS. Since I don't own Linux or Mac machine and don't plan to own one, I stopped reading the book on page 3 and never resumed. Unfortunately,I discovered this after 30 days return period. By the way, link to this software, listed in the book is wrong. There should be a big warning on the cover that software is available only for Linus and MacOS, to avoid situations like mine. Selling book with software that runs on 10% of computers, without visible warning should be considered a fraud. Oh, yes, you can google and find variuos ad-hoc procedures to run this on Windows, but none of these worked for me.

The tragedy is
that despite being a brilliant book, the best part, the executable code is
extremely difficult to run as it works only on an obscure MIT scheme implementation. It would easily earn 5 stars if it ran in PLT scheme for instance.

Expensive book... worth a look online
If you're reading this review now, you're considering whether this text is worthy of your [money].Well, stop the guessing, and just read the darn thing for free at [the website]

I've found the first part of it is the same classical stuff I've seen over and over, but in a new light, differently perceived, and worthy of, sometimes, just closing the book and thinking about the implications. Take what I say with a grain of salt, as I've not nearly read everything. See for yourself, as well. There'll be no mystery.

(The famed "sister text," SICP, is also online as well at the appropriate address)

New milestone
I can't rave enough -- by page 27, Sussman crisply solves a fundamental problem that I noticed as a schoolboy decades ago, and for which I never found a satisfactory solution despite discussing it with generations of the world's finest physicists, and that is, how, in Lagrange's equation, can @L/@q be treated independently of @L/@q_dot when q_dot depends on q through dq/dt=q_dot by assumption?Having had a lifelong mystery dispatched in a footnote, I am breathlessly working my way through the rest.I expect this will be a book I revisit every few years or so, like SICP, Abelson & Sussman's book on Computer Programs.

EDIT: As noted by another reviewer, it is a shame that one needs to be a Linux sys-admin to run the software as it stands. However, it is possible to rewrite the programs in Haskell or Mathematica on more commonplace platforms.It is also not actually necessary to run the programs as they stand -- the book is good just to read.

Structure and Interpretation of a Great Text
Among the horrors of modern education is the production of vast quantities of poorly written, error ridden science text books. This is in spite of the fact that many if not most of the great scientists of the 20th century have been excellent writers and lecturers. Einstein and Feynman are important examples: brilliant in their discoveries, they were equally brilliant in their abilities to describe and explain some of the most difficult concepts of science. We should be asking why these people can write about their work with such perfection while the "professionally produced" text books in our high schools and colleges are so mediocre.

The MIT Press stands among those publishers producing the very best work. Sussman's and Wisdom's text, "The Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics", provides a wonderful example. Here is a book providing further proof that (a) great science necessarily includes excellent writing and communications, (b) brilliant scientists tend to be the best writers in their fields, and (c) a text book on a difficult subject can be remarkably enjoyable as well as informative when well conceived and well written.

The very first chapter, "Lagrangian Mechanics", is worth the price of admission. It has all the attributes which make the entire book a gem: it is concise, efficient, clear, compact, full, and rewarding. Every sentence contains important ideas and information, yet each sentence is clear and direct. These are attributes usually associated with poetry, and one could argue that this text book approaches that level of literature. In the first three pages of the chapter, the authors present as complete a discussion as I've read on the relationship of mathematics to natural phenomena, the basic project of classical mechanics, and the "remarkable discovery that the same mathematical tools used to describe the motions of the planets can be used to describe the motion of the juggling pin." Furthermore, the chapter introduces and describes the concepts of configuration paths, variational formulation (and why that has some advantages over the classical Newtonian formulation), generalized coordinates, and the relationship of these formulations to a computer program in Scheme.

By the end of the chapter, students will be immersed in the subject out of interest, and will fully appreciate the themes and likely outcomes of the book. Classical mechanics will essentially "come to life" through a well structured use of computers to achieve a very deep understanding of classical systems.

Jump next to the book's Appendices, which present an introduction to the computer programming language of Scheme and a full explanation of the authors' adaptation of functional mathematical notation. Scheme is wonderfully crafted language for exploring, describing, and demonstrating science and mathematics. The mergence of Scheme, functional notation, and classical mechanics in a single text while retaining almost luminescent clarity ranks among great educational achievements!

This is almost too incredible to say, but the truth is that an entire semester could be dedicated to the first chapter and the two appendices, and everyone involved --- teacher and students --- would be entirely satisfied. But in this text, and in a course based on this text, these sections would serve as appetizers, and we would all want more. Fortunately, there is plenty more.

The authors write that they prefer using functional notation to traditional mathematical notation because, "In functional notation mathematical expressions are unambiguous and self-contained." This statement is, in fact, the best description of the entire book.

I believe that the book could be used effectively in high school, if there was some capacity for integrated curriculum planning. Students could be learning Scheme --- an excellent language to learn if programming is a major interest or even hobby --- and physics and math. Not least importantly, students would also learn the importance of good writing.

Some will argue that the book is more a college text, although I think we tend to underestimate the powerful minds and interests of younger learners. In either case, this book belongs in those places promoting good science and quality education, and, if you simply enjoy learning and reading, it has a place on your home bookshelf. ... Read more

Product Description
Gregory's Classical Mechanics is a major new textbook for undergraduates in mathematics and physics. It is a thorough, self-contained and highly readable account of a subject many students find difficult. The author's clear and systematic style promotes a good understanding of the subject; each concept is motivated and illustrated by worked examples, while problem sets provide plenty of practice for understanding and technique. Computer assisted problems, some suitable for projects, are also included. The book is structured to make learning the subject easy; there is a natural progression from core topics to more advanced ones and hard topics are treated with particular care. A theme of the book is the importance of conservation principles. These appear first in vectorial mechanics where they are proved and applied to problem solving. They reappear in analytical mechanics, where they are shown to be related to symmetries of the Lagrangian, culminating in Noether's theorem. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

good book to read
It is a good book to read and you can find alot of info from it.

THE text for undergraduate classical mechanics
This is THE BEST text in classical mechanics for undergrads I have ever seen! The author is a genius in explanation. I am a total bitch when I review books so a highly positive review from me does mean something. By the way I am a PhD student in physics so I have a very clear idea how the topics I understand should be explained and this author always hit the target right on.

I've mainly read the analytical mechanics chapters 12-14. For the first time I understood clearly the meaning of Dalambert principle, which was glossed over by my grad courses - I never got it what the difference is between real and virtual displacements untill this book. The text is very close to the historical treatment of Lagrange equations by Lagrange himself. Clear distinction is made between holonomic and non-holonomic constraints, static and moving. Variational principles are presented as reformulation of Lagrange equation. Again very clear treatment of Legendre transformation to get the Hamiltonian. It would be very exciting to see how this author would treat even higher level topics in classical mechanics like Hamilton-Jacobi theory etc, the topics in the well known text, The Variational Principles of Mechanics, by Lanczos.

From browsing the other sections, absolutely everything contained in this book is clearly explained in the right way. Numerous examples and diagrams all over the place. Smart problems with answers at the end of the book.

Last, Classical mechanics courses are traditionally more heavy on math so unprepared readers (obvously confusing this text with introductory physics course) should not complain if that marvelous book doesn't fit their bill.

Very Well Written
This text book is an excellent resource for any Undergraduate. The author expresses the material in a clear and coherent way, which doesn't leave the student, namely me, befuddled. The greatest thing about this book is the number and quality of the examples it provides, which give real world examples that make the information interesting. Overall, it is an excellent text book, and a great resource for any student.
Very Well Done!!
An Excellent Choice!

Great for self study
This is the best mechanics textbook I've found for actually learning the subject. The text is well set out and easy to read and there are LOTS of examples with full solutions. Once I'd studied these I found I could do most of the problems. Another good thing is that the book gives the answers to ALL the problems, not just a select few which can be very frustrating. I give this textbook a grade A (and so do the Mathematical Association of America whose review has just appeared on their web site [...]).

A large dissapointment
I used this text for my advanced freshmen mechanics course and found it absolutely abysmal. What happens is that most of the time where a discussion on physical implications is needed, a mathematical approach is used. For example in my class we usedchapter 7 as our introduction to angular momentum and orbits, and gregory introduces the idea of angular momentum as a number that results from an integration of the equation of motion. Although this might be a valid approach it provides little to no sense of why or how things work the way they do. This on top of the fact that i was constantly having to check to see if the answer in the back was right made my life much harder. Id suggest buying kleppner and kolenkow for a good physical intuition along with a high caliber of math and problems, or taylor. The upside is this book does have generally good problems, i just wish the text would give you the background neccesary to do them. ... Read more

Product Description
The series of texts on Classical Theoretical Physics is based on the highlysuccessful series of courses given by Walter Greiner at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Intended for advanced undergraduates and beginning graduate students, the volumes in the series provide not only a complete survey of classical theoretical physics but also an enormous number of worked examples and problems to show students clearly how to apply the abstract principles to realistic problems. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Fantastic
This is a fantastic book for the motivated physics student.
It is the best "theoretical" approach to Newtonian physics that I have found.At the University level, motivated Physics students are left with the frustration of taking their first few Physics courses with students who are majoring in Engineering, Chemistry, Biology, Pre-med, etc., etc.This leaves the situation where material is presented "watered down" and entirely non-theoretical in order to allow all students to follow along.
For the motivated Physics major, this can be quite frustrating.The first thing many of them do in that situation is begin a path of self-study to go along with the dry classroom presentation of the material.However, the search for a more mathematically driven "theoretic" approach to mechanics leads almost entirely to Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formalism.

This book presents Newtonian mechanics in all its theoretical "math nerd" glory.All necessary mathematical topics are covered with "physics rigor" that allows you to gain a usable knowledge of the mathematics in a minimal time.It has been the only book I've found that sticks to Newtonian mechanics, yet avoids the point and click "apply equation X here" methods that most introductory University texts give. I used it as a supplement to my assigned physics book for Mechanics and Heat and felt exceedingly more prepared than my fellow students with each succeeding chapter.

If you're a motivated student, I highly suggest picking up this book.The first year or two of a University Physics program can be uncomfortably dry....and you'll hear many times that students don't feel like they're doing "real" physics until their Junior year.This book will allow you the feel of doing "real physics" while sticking to the Newtonian mechanics that you'll use for your courses. By the end of the book, you'll feel comfortable with all the mathematical derivations and applications of Newtonian mechanics, have a solid grasp of harmonic oscillations, have a solid background in solving ordinary differential equations, feel comfortable with matrix algebra applications, and get the enjoyment that comes with doing "real physics" a good year or two before your classmates.

My only complaint is with some of the presentation of relativity.It is still well above average, but I didn't find it to be the asset of a self-study supplement that it was for freshman physics.

Excellent supplementary book
Simply stated, I don't consider this "the book" on the subject, but it is a most-have.It begins by developing some of the mathematical foundations needed to solve the problems; followed by some Newtonian mechanics (basic concepts: force, energy, motion in 1D-3D, and many examples and applications), and ends with special relativity.The topics are presented in a clear and straight-forward manner, although some of them were too simple and not as thorough as I wished.

This book corresponds to a regular 1st semester in mechanics.It should be complemented with the second book (Classical Mechanics) which deals with non-inertial reference frames, systems of particles, rigid bodies, Lagrange equ. and Hamiltonian Theory.

I give this book 4.5 stars (I'm a tough grader) ... Read more

Product Description
Apart from an introductory chapter giving a brief summary of Newtonian and Lagrangian mechanics, this book consists entirely of questions and solutions on topics in classical mechanics that will be encountered in undergraduate and graduate courses. These include one-, two-, and three- dimensional motion; linear and nonlinear oscillations; energy, potentials, momentum, and angular momentum; spherically symmetric potentials; multi-particle systems; rigid bodies; translation and rotation of the reference frame; the relativity principle and some of its consequences. The solutions are followed by a set of comments intended to stimulate inductive reasoning and provide additional information of interest. Both analytical and numerical (computer) techniques are used obtain and analyze solutions. The computer calculations use Mathematica (version 7), and the relevant code is given in the text. It includes use of the interactive Manipulate function which enables one to observe simulated motion on a computer screen, and to study the effects of changing parameters.

The book will be useful to students and lecturers in undergraduate and graduate courses on classical mechanics, and students and lecturers in courses in computational physics. ... Read more

Product Description
Written for engineers and engineering scientists, this book gives first priority to the formulation of problems, presenting the classical results as the gold standard, and the numerical approach as a tool for obtaining solutions. The classical part is a revision of the text "Foundations of Solid Mechanics", with a much-expanded discussion on the theories of plasticity and large elastic deformation with finite strains. The computational part is all new and aims to solve major linear and nonlinear boundary-value problems. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Quality
My professor was new to teaching and, coupled with his heavy Chinese accent, it soon became obvious that a book would be necessary for me to learn and understand the material in this class.So I purchased two books before acquiring this one, and this one is by far the best of them all.It explains everything in detail and rarely skips steps when deriving an equation and always states the assumptions upon which that equation is derived.I have not read the entire book - probably about half - but the portions I have read explained concepts in a non-boring, easy-to-understand way.This book helped me a lot in class and, after the end of the course, I decided to keep it for future reference rather than sell it.This is a good book.Buy it!

Good to know wide overview in solid mechanics
It's good to have a wide overview in Solid Mechanics, but it's not very clear explaining finite non-linear deformations and finite element analysis. There are better and more modern books for that. Sometimes it's confusing.

Great book
Bought this book for a class I am taking.Well written and easy to understand.

Classical and Computational Solid Mechanics (Advanced Series in Engineering Science)
The authors are very keen on this area. The book is suite for the researcher.

Fung's Solid Mechanics
I was an acquaintance of Professor Y.C. "Burt" Fung when he wrote his classic Solid Mechanics book - "Foundations of Solid Mechanics." He had just left Cal Tech to work in the field of Biomechanics at UC San Diego. This book contains much of the same material, updated to the present time, with very nice historical writings about the founders of Solid Mechanics.This is an excellent reference for anyone that considers themself a solid mechaniker. ... Read more

Product Description
Recent advances in the study of dynamical systems have revolutionized the way that classical mechanics is taught and understood. This new and comprehensive textbook provides a complete description of this fundamental branch of physics. The authors cover all the material that one would expect to find in a standard graduate course: Lagrangian and Hamiltonian dynamics, canonical transformations, the Hamilton-Jacobi equation, perturbation methods, and rigid bodies. They also deal with more advanced topics such as the relativistic Kepler problem, Liouville and Darboux theorems, and inverse and chaotic scattering. A key feature of the book is the early introduction of geometric (differential manifold) ideas, as well as detailed treatment of topics in nonlinear dynamics (such as the KAM theorem) and continuum dynamics (including solitons). Over 200 homework exercises are included. It will be an ideal textbook for graduate students of physics, applied mathematics, theoretical chemistry, and engineering, as well as a useful reference for researchers in these fields. A solutions manual is available exclusively for instructors. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Good book
Nice book. Discuss application of geometry in quite a detail, although not very deep and modern compared to current mathematics development

A great text
As some readers noted and others found to their frustration, this is an advanced text.Familiarity with mechanics, tensor notation, and similar are helpful to get the most out of this text.That said, it is a coherent exposition of classical mechanics in a modern light and will help the student develop a more advanced outlook on mechanics problems.I used it to study for my PhD qualifying examination.

Excellent Text
This book provides a very easy to read introduction to the ***geometry of physics*** in the setting of mechanics. Most of the explanations that discuss manifolds are very easy to grasp and the level of the book is sufficient to take one into a much deeper understanding of mechanics and physics in general. No book is perfect (even the so called classics) and there are a few minor errors but the big picture is clear. If you are looking for a really good text that will give you another perspective on mechanics then I highly recommend this text. Also note that I have had very good durability with my copy of the paper-back text. It has endured about 7 years of heavy use and is essentially in perfect condition.

Poorly written and bound
If this book is not required for your course, do not waste your money on it.Though it covers more than Goldstein, it does so quite poorly.You will learn more from two pages in Goldstein than an entire chapter in this book.The writing is unclear and the coverage of topology is so scant that its appearance is more of a hinderance to understanding than an aid.Furthermore, the book was so poorly bound that it started to fall apart one semester into the course.

Even if you like this approach, do not buy this edition
This book is, to say the least, okay.Yes, other reviewers are right when they say it's much better than Marion & Thornton.But Marion & Thornton, I think, is geared toward a less sophisticated audience, whereas this book is geared toward graduate students and beyond.It is written essentially at the level of Goldstein, but offers more insights into Topology.Goldstein hardly mentions topology.

So, because of this, one would think that Jose and Saletan would be better suited for students of theoretical and mathematical physics.But it's not.Jose and Saletan's excursions into geometry and topology are mediocre, at best.They leave out enough details that a real book on differential topology for physicists is required to gain any insight or intuition on the subject.Their transitions from pure physics to these mathematical subjects are clumsy and contrived, and they do not reveal anything that's too much more profound than if they hadn't brought up the subject at all.

And in comparing, on a purely physical level, this book to the book that sets the standard for classical mechanics, Goldstein, Jose pales in comparision.Goldstein keeps the reader fixed on a physical goal, but Jose and Saletan introduce unnecessarily complicated notation at times, and introduce ideas and concepts in a way that seems to defy logic.

And on top of all this, the paperback edition fell apart on me after less than a month of use.Some of the other students in my class who weren't as careful with their books as used them more heavily could even make it last 2 weeks before the pages were falling out of the cover.

So in summary, if you like books that cover a smattering of topics with no real rhyme or reason, or you need a good reference on classical mechanics and some of the more formal mathematics involved, then this is the book for you.But if you buy it, definitely don't buy this edition, at least if you want it to last.And if you're trying to learn classical mechanics from this book, make you you have a copy of Goldstein and a copy of Schutz's "Geometrical Methods of Mathematical Physics" available. ... Read more

Product Description
Bring Classical Mechanics To Life With a Realistic Software Simulation! You can enhance the thorough coverage of Chow's Classical Mechanics with a hands-on, real-world experience! John Wiley & Sons, Inc. is proud to announce a new computer simulation for classical mechanics. Developed by the Consortium for Upper-Level Physics Software (CUPS), this simulation offers complex, often realistic calculations of models of various physical systems. Classical Mechanics Simulations (54881-2) is the perfect complement to Chow's text. Like all of the CUPS simulations, it is remarkably easy to use, yet sophisticated enough for explorations of new ideas. Other Important Features Include:
* Six powerful simulations include: The Motion Generator, Rotation of Three-Dimensional Objects, Coupled Oscillators, Anharmonic Oscillators, Gravitational Orbits, and Collisions
* Pascal source code for all programs is supplied and a number of exercises suggest specific ways the programs can be modified.
* Simulations usually include graphical (often animated) displays.
The entire CUPS simulation series consists of nine book/software simulations which comprise most of the undergraduate physics major's curriculum. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Worst book ever
There are mistakes on half the pages (although some pages have multiple errors.)Some of them are simple typo's but many of them are equations that are wrong.It makes working through the examples difficult because so many of the examples have at least one error.If your teacher is using this book, beg him or her to change before the semester begins because it will cause nothing other than headaches.

This book is from 1995 ands they still haven't come out with a 2nd edition to fix the errors.In case you think I'm exagerating, I have a sheet with all the corrections (from the publisher) and there are 209 corrections!Seriously.I spent a full day changing them in the book and our class is still finding more everyday.

If They had Only Proofread I'd Give it 4 Stars!
I think this *would* have been an excellent book if it had been extensively proofread.However, it was not, and there are typos left and right.If a second edition comes out that fixes these typos and adds evenmodestly to the content, I would HIGHLY reccomend it, but as it stands,there are just too many mistakes.I disagree with the reviewer who saidthat Chow gets "hung up" on the mathematics though.I think hedoes an excellent job with the mathematics, as linear algebra and calculusare truly the only prereqs. but he gets you thinking in a moremathematically sophisticated manner that is essential for anyone who wantsto be able to read higher level physics/math texts.Please Mr. Chow, makea 2nd Edition!

Not a book to learn from
Dr. Chou suffers from the same problem as does Dr. Wangsness (of E&M fame): he gets lost in mathematical formulation while not elucidating on important principles.Especially bad is the Hamiltonian and Lagrangian chapter, which is rather incomprehensable unless it is already understood by the reader, at which point it is superfluous.

Disappointing.
There's a mistake on almost every page!(Probably typeset by Mr. McGoo.)If it wasn't for all the mistakes, this book would be very promising.The chapter on relativity is real bad though, so be careful.Also, it's very obvious that Dr. Chow copied many sections from Marion and Thornton almost verbatim.The chapter on Lagrange's method needs some improvement, especially on its coverage of the calculus of variations and Hamilton's principle.Hopefully, Dr. Chow will significantly improve the second edition.Wait until then ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (4)

Classical Mechanics in a classic style
Hartog's treatment covers the fundamental aspects of mechanics in an accessible, if slightly old fashioned, way. The textbook covers statics, kinematics and basic dynamics as they are applied to machine elements and basic structures. The simplest topic is the strength of a beam, and the most complex is the gyrocompass.

The textbook is valuable because it is systematic, comprehensive and well-written. The examples are old fashioned (including horse driven carts!) but valid. There is a good mix of geometrical and algebraical treatments of the topics which will be helpful to less-exeprienced students. It probably won't satisfy those with a keen interest in applied mathematics or who insist on the latest technological examples.

Dover have done a fine job producing a clear and robust book at a cheap price. This is a good investement for a practical engineer.

Good supplement to your textbook on the subject
If you have Beer & Johnson's textbooks on either the subject of statics or dynamics you already have a great (and expensive) text. This one is inexpensive with great exercises, and a very affordable self-study text. The one problem with it is that, like many Dover books, it was written decades ago and the language is therefore somewhat archaic and can be harder to read than modern texts. However, the diagrams are excellent and the problems are very good. The answers to the problems are in the back of the book, plus several people on the web have set about publishing detailed solutions to the problems Hartog's book since the problems do tend to be excellent and well thought out. I highly recommend it as a supplement, but I wouldn't recommend it as your main source of learning the subject of engineering mechanics.

Still a Useful Text on the Basics of Advanced Mechanical Physics
This classic text on the basics of mechanical engineering is still worthy reading ,even close to sixty years after its first publication.It's a great resourse for developing and securing your understanding of the established principles of mechanical properties in nature.Anyone,who is searching for excellent proto-examples of mechanical engineering ,can still rely on this text to supplement one's grasp of dynamics,statics and kinematics.A total of seventeen chapters presented.Plus corresponding problems with an answer key provided.The only drawback with this text is that it may seem dated.Yet,it's still a reliable study-resource for people concerned with aspects of mechanical technology.

great book
One of the best, buy it for the problem set, if not for the great text. ... Read more

Product Description
Philosophic, less formalistic approach to perennially important field of analytical mechanics. Model of clear scholarly exposition at graduate level with coverage of basic concepts, calculus of variations, principle of virtual work, equations of motion, relativistic mechanics, much more. First inexpensive paperbound edition. Index. Bibliography.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (15)

Clear and affordable introduction to variational principles
I am not a mathematician or physicist and my background on these subjects is rather basic, but I have an strong interest and since some years ago have been studying them from books like this. Although this book is probably very dated, I can only say that I learned a lot from it, that is clearly and pedagogically written and, last but not least, it is has the right price!

A pedagogical introduction into analytical mechanics
Before reading this book, I knew almost nothing about analytical mechanics. My first text books taught Physics from a Newtonian approach, using mostly vectors and potentials. So, the first time I encountered Lagrangians and Hamiltonians I could not understand what these concepts meant. Because of that many areas of Theoretical Physics were forbidden for me: Phase and configuration space, Noether's theorem, Hilbert relativistic equations, Feynman quantum-mechanical interpretation of the principle of least action, and so on.

So, two years ago, I decided to buy this book. And what I encountered? A systematical and pedagogical approach to analytical mechanics, which enabled me to acquire the fundamentals of the subject.

For me, the most interesting features of this book are the following:

1) It explains the differences between VARIATION and DIFFERENTIATION, something that most books in the subject, leave behind.
2) It explains clearly D'Alembert Principle and the Principle of Virtual Work.
3) From those principles he derives the Principle of Least Action, using just elemental calculus.
4) He introduces the reader in Legendre's transformation and the relations between the two fundamental quantities of Analytical mechanics: Lagrangian and Hamiltonian.
5) You get the equations of movement corresponding to those quantities: Euler-Lagrange (Lagrangian) and canonical (Hamiltonian) equations.
6) A powerful insight in Configuration and Phase Spaces is given, including the wonderful Liouville's theorem.
7) Lanczos shows the analogies between Optics and Mechanics when he explains the Hamilton-Jabobi equations.

So, why to learn Analytical Mechanics and why to buy this book?? These are my reasons:

1) From a historical point of view, Analytical Mechanics was developed by Continental Mathematicians like Maupertuis, Euler, D'Alembert and Lagrange as a rival system to the Newtonian one exposed in the Principia Mathematica. Newton used vectors and potentials. Euler and Lagrange employed the Principle of Least Action.
2) It was Analytical Mechanics the first to develop the principle of energy conservation. Even when this principle in its general form was developed by Wilhelm von Helmholtz in 1847, the conservation of the sum of kinetic and potential energy was well known to Euler a century earlier.
3) The concept of phase space is very important in Thermodynamics. In fact, the definition of entropy given by Ludwig Boltzmann refers to the logarithm of a volume in phase space. Liouville theorem, which states the conservation of such phase space volumes, is very usefull today in black hole thermodynamics.
4) The quantum-mechanical interpretation of the Principle of Least Action given by Richard Feynmann was a fundamental contribution in the development of Quantum Field Theory, so any student who desires to progress in this field, must have substantial knowledge of Analytical Mechanics.

So, to all of you that eventually decide to buy this book, I wish you a good reading.

Best book EVER!!!!
The most lucid and pedagogical presentation concerning the calculus of variations applied in mechanics. The developments are put in a historical context and the intrinsic connections with Riemannian geometry are explained. Simply, a must-have for everyone interested in really understanding the principles of mechanics.

a lot of unfamiliar variational tricks, sometimes lacks proofs or underexplains
I've read this gem and done most of the evercises in about 3 months. Before that legendary book I'd had the usual crappy course in Classical Mechanics based on Goldstein. The bottom line is the book will show you a lot of advanced material and unfamiliar manipulations. On the other hand there are sometimes statements lacking proof or more detailed lucid explanation. The book is appropriate for readers that already know what action is, totall beginners will be too shocked by the new concepts and won't be able to pick up the important nuances revealed by Lanczos.

Lanczos work clarified some of the concepts in which my CM course failed:
- the important difference in treating holonomic and nonholonomic constraints
- exact constraints are mathematical idealization of infinitely rigid constraint forces
- Lagrange multipliers for functionals (actions) not only functions
- the logical thread virtual work -> d'Alembert -> Hamilton's principle
- the connection between the action in configuration space andin phase space

The book introduced me to topics not covered by the course, which was my initial goal:
- elimination of ignorable variables in L or H formulation
- canonical transformations, definition and importance
- generating function of canonical transformation
- test for canonicity of transformation using Poisson brackets
- integral invariants of canonical transformations
- Hamilton's principal function
- Hamilton-Jackobi equation and analogy with optical wave surfaces
- separation of variables in H-J equation
- action-angle variables for separable periodic systems
- evolution of the system as a sequence of canonical transformation
- introducing geometry and geodesics in phase space

The reading definitely increased my freedom in manipulating the variational problem into equivalent variational problem. Examples of the two most weird for me manipulations are in the appendices. In the first appendix the Hamiltonian formulation is derived from the Lagrangian by introducing new variables, constraints and corresponding Lagrange multipliers, and then eliminating the variables. In appendix II, the most popular cases of Noether's theorem are derived by introducing new field variables in the action - I had no idea that was allowed. Very interesting was the idea that the world line of the system in configuration space can be parametrized with arbitrary parameter and the time becomes a function of that parameter that is varied together with the other generalized coordinates. Such variation is normal for GR but I've never seen it done in non-relativistic mechanics. EDIT: Sept 2008. Recently I've found a textbook that clearly explains some of the fuzzy examples in Lanczos like varying the time: "Analytical Mechanics for Relativity and Quantum Mechanics" by Oliver Johns.

Some of the other reviews described the book as 'lucid'. I find that eggagerated - although the book shows lots of unfamiliar manipulations, sometimes proofs of validity or the necessary more detailed conceptual or calculational explanations are lacking. An example is the inclusion, all of a sudden, of the time as variable to be varied - where is the proof one is allowed to do that? In another case, the book tells you that by nullifying the boundary term when varying the action, one gets 'natural' boundary conditions for the Euler-Lagrange diff. equations. I failed to see how the physics of the problem would demand exactly those boundary conditions. Where the analogy between mechanics and optics was discussed, the book creates the impression it derived the Fermat's principle but in reality it simply proved that the path following the gradient of of constant surfaces is shortest between two points. So there is a certain gegree of fuzziness on calculational level (lacking proofs of validity) or conceptual level (underexplained concepts and relations).

I liked the the abundance of historical notes. You will learn that there are several formulations of the least action principle - Euler and Lagrange version, Jackobi version and Hamilton version. Each subsection has a small summary and there are a few problems per section to illustrate the main ideas but not enough for exercises.

There are two chapters that I think appeared in later editions and are too sketchy compared to the book core:

Chapter 9 discusses special relativity where you can see that guessing the relativistic Lagrangian on general grounds of Lorentz invariance gives almost effortlessly the relativistic dynamics without the usual gedanken experiments. At the end, Lanczos dives a little into GR using the Schwartzchild metric to derive orbits, bending of light rays and gravitational redshift around spherical body.

Chapter 11 gives a short presentation of fluid mechanics (a little unclear derivation, in Lagrange and Euler coordinates), elasticity, and electromagnetism. Noether's principle is used to derive the canonical and the symmetric energy momentum tensor. I haven't seen a crystal clear derivation of Noether anywhere and Lancsoz is not an exception. The problem is as usual ommiting what exactly is being transformed and why is that allowed.

Timeless classic, masterful ...
If you ask 10 PhD scientists: "Why is Schrodinger's Equation complex?" (contains the square-root of minus one), 9 out of 10 won't be able to give you the correct answer.

It has little to do with taking the root of negative numbers. After reading Lanczos you will know it has do with "space" and what is a proper physical law. (Now you have to read the book to parse this sentence. Good.)

This is one of many wonderful insights Lanczos provides; with humor, wonder and crystal clarity. This is not a 'text book' on mechanics, you will get more out of it if you are familiar with the subject. He gives you understanding, not technique.

It is as if you can hum a few tunes. Reading Lanczos is experiencing the entire opera for the first time. Now you know the full story, how each aria is a part of the fabric; how each fits in the situation, the motivation behind it. The tunes you liked become richer, more profound, they are connected. The next time you sing you fancy you are a Caruso, a Puccini.

It is so rare to encounter a master who is also a gifted writer.

Some reviewers compare Lanczos to Feynman's Lectures, I agree partly.Lanczos is more literate and much more humble. Feynman is so busy being the genius from Brooklyn that his exposition is choppy and uneven.Lanczos is a better organizer and writer.




... Read more

Product Description

The enabling science in much of nanotechnology today is the science of nanomaterials; indeed in the broadest sense, nanotechnology would not be possible without nanomaterials. Nanomaterials: Mechanics and Mechanisms seeks to provide an entrè into the field for mechanical engineers, material scientists, chemical and biomedical engineers and physicists. The objective is to provide the reader with the connections needed to understand the intense activity in the area of the mechanics of nanomaterials, and to develop ways of thinking about these new materials that could be useful to both research and application. The book covers all of the fundamentals of the mechanical properties of materials in a highly readable style, and integrates most of the literature on the emerging field of nanomaterials into a coherent body of knowledge.

This volume provides a basic understanding of mechanics and materials, and specifically nanomaterials and nanomechanics, in one self-contained text. Graduate and advanced undergraduate students will find well-organized chapters that provide the necessary background in mechanics, mechanical properties and modeling. The writing style illustrates concepts through quantitative modeling techniques, in contrast to theoretical abstractions of materials behavior.  Problem sets within each chapter aim to motivate discussion and further study in this rich and bourgeoning field.

Providing engineers with the knowledge necessary to take full advantage of the tremendous potential of nanomaterials, Nanomaterials: Mechanics and Mechanisms is a valuable teaching/learning tool for mechanical engineering, physics and materials science audiences.

Customer Reviews (1)

classical treatment; no quantum mechanics
Ramesh furnishes a description of nanomaterials well suited for an engineer or scientist from a variety of disciplines. The treatment is characterised by staying in the classical regime. This is not a quantum treatment.

Instead, the descriptions of such important ideas like deformation, elasticity and strain should be familiar from textbooks covering larger scales.

What is perhaps most different is the excursion into experimental methods. Many new techniques have been devised to handle the small scales involved, like nanoindentation and microcompression. Fascinating and ingenious. You should find the explanations easy to follow. Ramesh concentrates on the essentials of each method without drowning you in experimental details.
... Read more

Product Description
It has been discovered over the past few decades that even motions in simple systems can have complex and surprising properties. This volume provides a clear introduction to these chaotic phenomena, based on geometrical interpretations and simple arguments, without the need for prior in-depth scientific and mathematical knowledge. Richly illustrated throughout, its examples are taken from classical mechanics whose elementary laws are familiar to the reader. In order to emphasize the general features of chaos, the most important relations are also given in simple mathematical forms, independent of any mechanical interpretation. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Excellent basic textbook
A richly illustrated book with many elementary examples in classical mechanics. This is a basic textbook on the topic. Very much recommended for teachers and undergraduate students.

ok quality
For the price of the book I'm not complaining! Quality is average-okay, would buy from again at this price. ... Read more

Product Description
Now available from University Science Books at a much lower price, this classic textbook has never been rivaled. It is ideal for a senior or first-year graduate level courses.Statistical Mechanics is the extended version of McQuarrie's 1984 text -- Statistical Thermodynamics -- now out of print.Although our printing of this book carries a 2000 copyright date, this is not a new edition.It is the original first edition, without any changes to the text (except preface). Despite its age, it is still a renowned and accessible introduction to the subject, containing a large number of chapter-ending problems for students. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (14)

Excellent
The shipping was timely and the book was in great condition.I'd definitely use them again.

Statistical Mechanics by McQuarrie
McQuarrie, is a good resource for statistical mechanics, more so for those with a solid mathematical background so that you can fill in the gaps in the derivations and proofs. It is relativily easy to understand and covers the majority to topics well.

It's okay
Good book, covers a lot of material. However, there seem to be some mistakes pointed out by my professor. Things like - McQ doesn't seem to know the difference between quantum probability (Born interpretation) and statistical probability when it comes to quantum stat mech. Don't take my word for it though. It covers what you need to know.

review of a statistical mechanics by donald mcquarrie
I purchased this book after I bought quantum chemistry by the same author.
I liked the quantum chemistry book better than this book because It lacks the mathematical details found in the book about quantum chemistry.So it is more difficult to follow what is written.I recommend to the author for future versions to be mathematically elaborate and add mathematical details for each and each derivation in the book.

Tarek H.Musslimani

Terse and unhelpful - a dreadful book - avoid like the plague!
I was forced to use this singularly unhelpful book in graduate school. It was written in a terse, indigestible style; contained very few worked problems; left many important derivations or steps of derivations to the reader; had impossibly hard end-of-chapter problems - without solutions; and contained many typographical errors. Perhaps, as other reviewers have suggested, it would have been more helpful as a research reference, or as a textbook for students with a very strong background in undergraduate statistical thermodynamics. Do not attempt to use this book to learn statistical mechanics for the first time!

This review refers to the first edition. ... Read more

Product Description
An advanced text for first-year graduate students in physics and engineering taking a standard classical mechanics course, this is the first book to describe the subject in the context of the language and methods of modern nonlinear dynamics. The organizing principle of the text is integrability vs. nonintegrability. It introduces flows in phase space and transformations early and illustrates their applications throughout the text. The standard integrable problems of elementary physics are analyzed from the standpoint of flows, transformations, and integrability. This approach allows the author to introduce most of the interesting ideas of modern nonlinear dynamics via the most elementary nonintegrable problems of Newtonian mechanics. This text will also interest specialists in nonlinear dynamics, mathematicians, engineers and system theorists. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Not recommended as a mechanics text
Unfortunately, McCauley fails to meet the stated goal of this book as "... an advanced text for first-year graduate students in physics and engineering taking a standard classical mechanics course."The perspective presented by McCauley would be enlightening, were it not for this book's significant flaws.Foremost, the number of mistakes in equations, diagrams, problems, and the text presents an obstacle to understanding.The book appears to have been published without review by an editor, let alone one with a knowledge of mechanics.To be fair, some of the descriptions are lucid and well written, specifically some sections on flows in phase space, but generally topics seem to be incompletely, though sometimes verbosely, presented.The problems, often lifted from other sources, poorly illustrate the concepts and methods presented.Furthermore, the book suffers from a poor index which limits its usefulness as a reference.Given the flaws, I cannot recommend the use of this book as a text nor reference.

too much chatter...
Ok, so McCauley does succeed in utilizing very useful techniques such as integrability, phase flows, etc., in his book which gets you thinking in terms of concepts every grad student should know that is applicable to many different areas in physics. But, he needs to do a couple of things, that I can think of off the top of my head, to make his book better:

1) When I bought the book, I paid for it to learn physics, not to hear him bash the Catholic Church and his thoughts on the multi-causal nature of what factors may have hindered the progress of science throughout history, such as in the 1st chapter. Stick with physics buddy! A Carl Sagan he is not. Also the grammar needs some serious work. Sometimes his sentences are not technically sentences. In fact, I don't know what they are, but grammar is not his virtue.

2) GET YOUR INDICES RIGHT!!! There are way too many errors which is confusing for a student learning this for the first time.

3) If you are going to copy problems out of Goldstein, at least copy them correctly. Basically, there is serious revision that needs to occur b/c there are way too many typos.

Besides that, I like his approach...it's modern and interesting, but things could be organized better. Basically, I think you are better starting off with Goldstein and then using McCauley for reference if you plan to do non-linear dynamics etc., later on in your physics career!

One of the best books ever
I think this and any book written by Prof McCauley are absolutely wonderful. I think any physics nerd should read them. I put full faith in Prof McCauley, he's one of the smartest men alive...of course it could be because he's my father!!

Profound insight
I purchased and studied this book shortly after completing an undergraduate class in mechanics. It was incredibly enlightening. After studying this, I realized that I had only received a partial glimpse via the standard undergrad mechanics course. McCauley provides the models to explain dynamics variations that you might think were not discernable.

It is a difficult but worthy journey. "Just buy it and the insight
will come"

Must Read On "Integrability"
This book provides an excellent discussion of "integrability" which dispells some confusions that exist about this subject. The style is accessible and the book does not require years of study of differentialgeometry before reading. My only complaint is that sometimes the discussiondrags on longer than I like; a more concise presentation could be made inplaces. However, this is a minor quibble and a prolonged discussion isdefinitely less of a defect than an abstract, poorly explained discussionthat one finds in too many other books. ... Read more