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Summary: Must Master This Before Junior Level Mechanics
Review: What I liked most about this book is its presentation of theory and problems in various coordinate systems. The freshman mechanics course I had rarely used a coord. system other than cartesian. Do not waste your time with junior level mechanics until you have mastered this book and problems.
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Summary: THE MIT 8.012 Textbook
Review: Wow, here it is at Amazon.com. The textbook used for "Advanced" freshman physics/mechanics at MIT. I first used Kleppner's book when it was a collection of notes in a binder. It was not for sale at the bookstore; you bought it at the Undergraduate Physics office for, [$$$] I recall.But here's the real point: this book, and its wonderful set of homework problems, was written for freshman completely and thoroughly trained in differential and integral calculus. After all, mechanics is all about calculus. I have read many science book reviews here at Amazon, and I am getting the impression that there are many well-prepared students out there, and that calculus is a second language by high school graduation. If this is true, then forget Halliday/Resnick. Forget Serway, forget Giancoli. If you know your calculus well (and I mean well) and you take Freshman Physics using those books, you have wasted a perfectly good semester. It's as simple as this: Does F = ma? Or does F = dP/dt? (Where, of course, F, P and a are vectors.) The problems are, indeed, challenging. They require thinking, reasoning and excellent mathematical skill. They do not simply ask you to draw a force diagram, plug in some masses, resolve some vector components and ask you what the net motion is. From my own personal experience, it is difficult to learn calculus and study this book at the same time. Do your calculus first, and maybe even some differential equations. I think this book is not widely used because it is not easy to ensure that 100% of the class comes in with a good grounding in calculus. That is perhaps why it is sometimes spoken of here as an "honors" level textbook. I will add that Dan Kleppner and his colleague at MIT, David Pritchard (who taught this course for many years) are excellent scientists and teachers. They are not satisfied with the "tried and true" ways of looking at things, and are always searching for new ways to delve into the subject matter. Thus, you will find this to be an intriguing book, with lots of unique approaches and viewpoints. It is very much worth the effort.
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