John R. Taylor
overview
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 and covers such topics as 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, classified by topic and approximate difficulty, and ranging from simple exercises to challenging computer projects. 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. He manages to convey that excitement as well as deep understanding and insight.