Analytical Mechanics : With an Introduction to Dynamical Systems

Rating:
Summary: beware of title
Review: Although this book contains the usual advanced topics in classical mechanics, one must be aware of the meaning of its title. It indicates that its contents of classical mechanics are at the advanced level for engineers but not quite at the level and sophistication essential for advanced graduate work in physics; it lacks exposure in Hamiltonian formalism and advanced mathematics (differentiable manifolds, exterior forms, etc.), material which I believe is important to serious physics students

I strongly surmise that engineering students can benefit most from this book. It contains a large body of homework problems, some of them copied from Schaum's Lagrangian Dynamics and other books. This book is somewhat readable, though Prof. Torok's choice of symbols often clouds my analysis.

Too expensive of a hardcover, I am better off with my old Marion or Landau.

Rating:
Summary: beware of title
Review: Although this book contains the usual advanced topics in classical mechanics, one must be aware of the meaning of its title. It indicates that its contents of classical mechanics are at the advanced level for engineers but not quite at the level and sophistication essential for advanced graduate work in physics; it lacks exposure in Hamiltonian formalism and advanced mathematics (differentiable manifolds, exterior forms, etc.), material which I believe is important to serious physics students

I strongly surmise that engineering students can benefit most from this book. It contains a large body of homework problems, some of them copied from Schaum's Lagrangian Dynamics and other books. This book is somewhat readable, though Prof. Torok's choice of symbols often clouds my analysis.

Too expensive of a hardcover, I am better off with my old Marion or Landau.

Rating:
Summary: Where did all the examples go?
Review: This book needed to be proofread by more than the author.

Approximately 30% of all of the information in the figures is missing. Few of the greek characters got printed in the figures for an advanced dynamics book that makes it impossible to read.

Another point of interest to the reader is that the first chapter has ~40 pages, and there are ~40 pages of problems. It just goes to show the author should have put more (some) effort and time into explanations, and less into the pure copying of others dynamics problems. Who needs an advanced dynamics book with more than 200 problems in one chapter alone.

The material presented here would be decent if there were 10 times the number of example problems and the figures showed relevant information. I cannot believe that an author would honestly publish this work without reading through it first.