Analytical Mechanics

Rating:
Summary: Advanced
Review: I took a course in Analytical Mechanics my junior year and I found this book to be very advanced. If you touch up on your linear algebra, differential equations, and know a few tricks with Taylor series expansions and a few trig identitities, you should be armed with a decent arsenal for the exercises in this book. Exercises take a lot of time and energy, and examples provide little help. There are also supplementary sections which solve problems using Mathcad and Mathematica. These are helpful, but only if you've used the software before. The text wastes no time in teaching you syntax. Be prepared to expend extra energy re-reading sections of this book. It sometimes lacks clarity.

Rating:
Summary: This is a very good mechanics book.
Review: I would actually rate this book closer to 4 and 1/2 stars. I used this text for two semesters of mechanics as a Junior undergraduate physics major and found it to be well written and well organized. I found the historical introductions to the chapters to capture my interest and the material in the chapters to be thorough and logical. My only complaint of the text is that it doesn't offer more examples. I definately feel that most students with a introductory physics background could learn the principles of mechanics using this book without the help of an instructor.

Rating:
Summary: expenseive and bad
Review: terrible book, don't expect to learn physics by yourself from this book. You will waste a lot of time. The book has a solution manual for instructor only, and your grader use them to correct your homework.

Rating:
Summary: Pretty Good
Review: This book contains 3rd year undergrad mechanics. Multivariable and differential calculus are definitely required. Some of the new math (more advanced calculus, such as tensors, variations, etc.) that is needed is covered in the book fairly well, but 2 years of calculus is absolutely necessary.

I thought the examples were pretty clear and most of the text helpful, minus the historical info (fluff). Most of the problems required abstract thinking from the text but didn't seem (and weren't) impossible, just difficult.

The topics covered in this book are the following: Vectors, Newtonian Mechanics, Oscillations (where it gets harder), Motion in 3-D, Noninertial Reference Systems, Gravitation, Dynamics of Particle Systems, Rigid Body Mechanics (2-D and 3-D), Lagrangian Mechanics, and Dynamics of Oscillating Systems.

Overall I would recommend this book. It would be a pretty good book for self-study, but a couple math suppliments on tensors and calculus of variations may be helpful (perhaps look at Dover Publications' books since they are cheap).

Rating:
Summary: Pretty Good
Review: This book contains 3rd year undergrad mechanics. Multivariable and differential calculus are definitely required. Some of the new math (more advanced calculus, such as tensors, variations, etc.) that is needed is covered in the book fairly well, but 2 years of calculus is absolutely necessary.

I thought the examples were pretty clear and most of the text helpful, minus the historical info (fluff). Most of the problems required abstract thinking from the text but didn't seem (and weren't) impossible, just difficult.

The topics covered in this book are the following: Vectors, Newtonian Mechanics, Oscillations (where it gets harder), Motion in 3-D, Noninertial Reference Systems, Gravitation, Dynamics of Particle Systems, Rigid Body Mechanics (2-D and 3-D), Lagrangian Mechanics, and Dynamics of Oscillating Systems.

Overall I would recommend this book. It would be a pretty good book for self-study, but a couple math suppliments on tensors and calculus of variations may be helpful (perhaps look at Dover Publications' books since they are cheap).

Rating:
Summary: 3-D physics with 2-D text is a challenge
Review: This book was used in Fall 2000 for an undergrad course in mechanics - physics dept. at University of Houston. The professor was distracted most of the time, so I had to learn the material via this book. Trying to learn 3 dimension dynamics via drawings in a 2 -d text is difficult. If you have mastered the math, then you might be able to imagine in your head the dynamics. I learn best by first understanding the physics -- the math then is verification. For me to first understand the physics requires alot of pictures and solving problems. This book is weak in both depts., so, I acquired 3 other books. I finally understood the material, conceptually. I am not sure that there is available one book that offers a broad enough perspective with tons of problems/with solutions and graphics for one to master this subject. You may want to engage my strategy. Out of many books which I used, this book was ranked somewhere in the middle. Use Amazon's search engine to find other books. I now have the expertise to launch a rocket, build the ultimate roller coaster, among other things. Also, do the computer problems at the end of each chapter. Only with the tools of mathcad or mathematica can one perform miraculous feats.

Rating:
Summary: elegantly condensed, not practical
Review: This is an excellent text. Much, much better than Marion and Thornton. It's not so advanced that you can't cover most of the material in one semester. The explanations are very clear and the layout is neat and conducive to learning. We used Marion and Thornton for class and I intensely disliked it. This is much better written and very well organised. I used it to study for the GRE. This is *the* undergraduate mechanic text!

Rating:
Summary: An Adequate Text that Leaves the Reader Wanting More
Review: This textbook covers all the aspects of analytical mechanics at the Junior/Senior level for an undergraduate physics major. It does this adequately. The organization of topics in the book appears to be slightly pell mell. The reader would benefit from the treatment of Langrangian mechanics before tackling the tough problem of 3D rigid body mechanics (the spinning top problem is much more approachable using the Lagrangian). The examples are slightly helpful, but leaving me wanting more. The problems are challenging. A solution's guide would be helpful to help the student work through some of the more difficult problems. In general the descriptions are clear, but as I said there does not seem to be a strong organiztional focus, which leads the reader to ask the question where are you going with this and why. It would have been nice to see clear motivating factors to want to study each chapter and to educate the reader why the topic is useful to study in more depth than in a introductory physics class. I cannot recommend a better book treating this subject but I would do an in-depth search for a better book on the subject before buying this one.

Rating:
Summary: An Adequate Text that Leaves the Reader Wanting More
Review: This textbook covers all the aspects of analytical mechanics at the Junior/Senior level for an undergraduate physics major. It does this adequately. The organization of topics in the book appears to be slightly pell mell. The reader would benefit from the treatment of Langrangian mechanics before tackling the tough problem of 3D rigid body mechanics (the spinning top problem is much more approachable using the Lagrangian). The examples are slightly helpful, but leaving me wanting more. The problems are challenging. A solution's guide would be helpful to help the student work through some of the more difficult problems. In general the descriptions are clear, but as I said there does not seem to be a strong organiztional focus, which leads the reader to ask the question where are you going with this and why. It would have been nice to see clear motivating factors to want to study each chapter and to educate the reader why the topic is useful to study in more depth than in a introductory physics class. I cannot recommend a better book treating this subject but I would do an in-depth search for a better book on the subject before buying this one.