Introduction to Classical Mechanics: With Problems and Solutions

My background? Ph. D. Organic Chemistry. I did not do well at math, but I'm out of school now, and done taking classes. I bought this book to self-teach myself some remedial Physics in order to facilitate a non-trivial study of quantum mechanics.What a gem of a book. The introduction is very reassuring. The material won't be learned without working problems. Working problems takes time. Part of the learning process is doing problems wrong. They never told me this in college. Not getting it right the first time convinced me I had low aptitude for this stuff. It turns out, my sufferings were a natural part of the learning process.The tone of the book is very helpful. The author wants the student to succeed. Too often, I have taken a class or tried to use a book in which the professor's attitude was "many of you will die." Not only does Morin seem to want the reader to succeed, he even gives extensive instructions on how to succeed. He starts with a whole chapter on how to solve problems, even when the reader doesn't have quite the background to solve the problem.I was able to read well into the introductory material using the free chapters Morin puts online, so I was able to determine this was the right book for what I was trying to do before I bought it. I would recommend anyone to try the free stuff.I'm having about as good a time as I could ever expect with this material. Remember, pain and suffering are normal.The limericks? Perhaps they go over my head.

A strength of this book is the very good collection of problems at the end of each chapter. There is a nice progression of complexity in the available problems. There is a diagram to accompany each problem which really helps to clarify the problem. Solutions are included for a significant number of the problems.

One of my favorite textbooks on classical mechanics. I enjoy this textbook because it doesn't shy away from the derivations of the equations used and it has a lot of insightful footnotes. Some of them point out common misunderstandings of the concepts presented, and others are just interesting ways of looking at the topics presented.I wouldn't recommend this as a first college textbook on classical mechanics, though. I think it functions better as a second read on classical mechanics. David Morin's book will help you flesh out the fine details of classical mechanics and really solidify your knowledge.The chapters themselves are very good, but the problems at the end of the chapters are my favorite part. David Morin did a fantastic job collecting what you would call "cute" problems. The problems will really help you build your problem solving skills. You will be forced to be creative (figuring out how to correctly set up the problem), and systematic (checking limits and such).I repeat, the material itself is introductory classical mechanics, but the problems are tougher and not "plug and chug" problems and, in my opinion, should be attempted after already learning from an easier textbook and doing easier problems from another textbook.To reiterate once again...A lot of reviews might complain about this book and give it less stars because they feel like it isn't introductory. However, the material really is standard classical mechanics. The low reviews are, in my opinion, by people who are frustrated by some of the tougher problems and who don't have as strong problem solving skills as they initially thought they did. Buy this book if you are looking to really work out your problem solving skills and are aiming to become a physicist. Those who simply want to learn classical mechanics and do simple "plug and chug" problems will have to look elsewhere.

Taylor’s Mechancis is exceptionally well written as compared to the other popular mechanics books at about this same level (Kleppner, Morin). However, the book is unrigorous in both its use of mathematics (after all, it's a physics book!) and its treatment of physics, especially angular rotation and the variational dynamics. That makes it a good follow up to something like Halliday for students who are content to use math and do physics heuristically; that is to say, for most engineering and science students, this book makes for a good, gentle introduction to advanced topics in dynamics.However, Taylor is not suitable as a either and introductory or intermediate text in mechanics for students interested in graduate studies which will depend on this material. Kleppner rigorously derives the classical physics theorems in limited cases, using rigorous but elementary calculus, making it a more suitable introduction to the subject. Morin unrigorously derives the classical physics theorems in generality using huristic vector calculus, making it a much more suitable follow up to Kleppner and prerequisite to Goldstein (which is the standard doctoral text).Notice, though, that Taylor covers significantly more topics than Kleppner and Morin combined. This is in the nature of things: heuristic examples are easier to explain than theorems and proofs, which affords Taylor the time to introduce some amazing applications of the theory, for example nonlinear dynamics and fluid dynamics. If you are looking for a cohesive introduction to these tangential topics, and are content to do things heuristically, there might not be a better book than Taylor.I scored Morin 4/5 because it is the only book at this level which provides a rigorous accounting of physics of angular dynamics in the general case. However, the chatty style--not just the random poems, but also in the excessive number of casual “remarks” throughout--detracts from the physics. In particular, the chapter on Lagrangian Mechanics is terribly written. There again, the treatment is more correct but less clear than in Taylor, but in this instance the line of argumentation is nearly unintelligible on a first reading.However, it should be noted that almost no books prove, in the special cases where such a proof is possible, that Newtonian and Lagrangian physics are equivalent. They all, for whatever reason, simply argue the “if” or the “only if” part of the correspondence. In reality, Morin should probably deal with Lagrangian physics as he does angular physics: break it into two chapters, the first dealing with the most important special case (Cartesian degrees of freedom), the second dealing with the general case (generalized degrees of freedom). As it stands, none of the introductory Lagrangian Mechancis books, including Goldstein, do this--however, Goldstein is at least explicit enough with the definitions so that the untreated correspondence can easily be worked out by a student on a first reading.Furthermore, it should be noted that the treatment of Special Relativity follows the “curious paradox” line of reasoning, rather than the “homomorphic equations” line of reasoning. This is the standard, but by definition it is unintuitive. Since physical--in particular, mechanical and electrical--intuition is of paramount importance in the study and application of physics, I also think this standard treatment is rather useless. Physics Professors seem to insist on treating Special Relativity after Classical Mechanics but before Classical Electromagnetism, which precludes the line of argumentation which seemed to inspire Einstein in the first place: that Maxwell's Equations, including the constant factors, ought to have the same form under suitable changes of coordinates. For this reason, I think the best treatments of special relativity can be found in books like Griffiths and Jackson, rather than books like Morin and Taylor. (Indeed, Taylor explicitly refers the reader to Griffiths, which is ridiculous since both books deploy the same mathematical machinery).

No words to describe. You will know when you read it. Very clear and to the point, I love it.