The Infamous MIT “Introductory” Textbook
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 เม.ย. 2023
- In this video I review An Introduction To Classical Mechanics by Daniel Kleppner and Robert Kolenkow. This book was infamously used at MIT for the class 8.012 which was nicknamed “mechanics for masochists” because of its level of difficulty.
I have received an abundance of comments relating to my wobbly camera. I have recently started TH-cam and have only just acquired a proper camera stand. This is now implemented in all my future videos.
Cool
Take it easy, everyone complains about what they got for free
You’re fine. Thanks for the content!
Wobbly camera is ok but we need to see a lot more of your hand waving. 😃
We got physics sorcerer right here
@@sentientartificialintelligence fr They are so good
We need computer sorcerer
@@thessianheart9816 primeagen?
@@jonathanalonso6492 this primeagen guy doesn't seem to do any computing book reviews. So that's a no from me.
facts
I loved this book as a freshman in 8.012 at MIT. I have borrowed problems from it for my own classes at Valparaiso University. The foreword has a great phrase attributed to Piet Hein: “Problems worthy of attack prove their worth by hitting back”. 😂👍
Wow. In first year at McGill we did Halliday and Resnick. We used K&K in second year and then Golstein in third year.
Que wea estudio física en la misma facultad XDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
I love that.
@@L7Reinhardt pis pas jonaas pas pis pis pis pas jonas
At Texas A&M, we have a pair of introductory physics courses (PHYS 206 and 207) where the textbook is titled Don't Panic. The reasoning behind this, according to the author, physics professor Dr. Bill Bassichis, is that when he was in college, the physics textbook he got was titled Physics: An Introductory Course. You can see how that got abbreviated to PANIC.
He should have just called it PANIC
I wonder if it was also a homage to "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". Cool reference if it was so.
Damn, i was expecting a Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe joke.
During my first semester at University of Karlsruhe I wasn't only introduced to the Berkeley Physics Course but to the Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe too.
During third semester the book used for classical mechanics was Landau/Lifshitz and Goldstein. But K&K looks like a good book too.
Though I'm a mathematics student but I'm happy that there are so many channels coming out on TH-cam where they talk about good books and how they started their journey.
While studying math/cs we used to make the joke that "An Introduction to… " in context of math/cs means "this is all we curently know about this subject" whereas it means something very different elsewhere in science
at least I am not alone too lol
So relatable 😅! I always used to wonder if there was anything beyond all those „introductions”, „fundamentals” and „propedeutics”… 🙄 It’s exactly the same in every science domain I know! The authors push the whole body of their knowledge into those books but call them „introduction” just in case some peer were to point out: „Ha! You omitted this one quirky detail!” - „But of course, it’s just an introduction, isn’t it?” 😏🤓
Yup! "Introduction to X" could be followed by "Research topics in X" where could find your thesis topic.
I took the AP physics classes in high school but this textbook was what we used for our Honors Introduction sequence in freshman year of college. That was essentially our first introduction to physics. It was certainly a tough journey but it indeed was a good textbook.
Bro I’ve never seen another Nidhish before in my life
@@nidhishshivashankar4885 well. this is a physics video.
@@barracuda6817 ?
@@lunarcod7187 sorry ur confused
@@lunarcod7187 he means that they're both Indians and Indians like physics books.
I think people mistake "introduction" for "easy", and that's why they get tripped up by a book like this. Really, "introduction" is textbook-lingo for "self-contained". It contains all subject-relevant info needed to understand from ground zero. This means that the mechanics concepts are built up from scratch in this book, but the same is not necessarily true about the mathematics. It might give a quick brush on concepts of vector algebra, multivariate calculus, and differential equations as they come up, but there are separate texts for that information if you want a formal introduction.
I think the issue is that this book is used with students who are still learning univariate calculus, and so less a problem with the book or the physics curriculum itself, but instead the interaction between the physics and math curricula.
Yes! And at MIT, at least when I went there, most people took 8.01, a more normal physics course. Most people there means MIT engineering majors, a pretty select group, so even 8.01 was not exactly an easy class. This 8.012 was intended for people who, in their first semester there, wanted to really challenge themselves beyond what the average MIT students were doing. So if 99+% of the world finds this book out of their reach, that sounds about right.
I am currently reading through "Fundamentals of nuclear models", and it is similar story - especially since Rowe and Wood really enjoy to use lot of group theory concepts.
@@adamprasek9640 That's great. If you're a physicist (or in-training), you should be familiarizing yourself with group theoretic models as early as possible, because those don't go away. Groups are the study of symmetries, the universe is quite symmetric in a lot of ways.
@@dre3951some highschooler solved it and topped in highschool exam so I definately expect it to be hard for highschooler but by looking at your comment it seems like even for college students it is hard can't even comprehend for highschoolers
We used this book at Cornell. This book/course made me switch my major to math. I still have this book and would one day like to revisit it in less stressful environment.
You should see Landau and Lifshitz. Jumps immediately into Lagrangian mechanics as the starting point.
Yes, I own the book.
I was MIT class of '76. I took 8.01 (the standard first-semester physics course) and I am SO glad that we didn't use that book. I had enough trouble with vectors as it was.
Haha old, but also cool you're smart
I also used this book too when i did my first mechanics class! ❤ Indeed if there is no prior experience in physics, this book is awfully hard. But otherwise it is an excellent bridge to the next analytical mechanics course using Marion, or more modern books like Hamill or Hand because all the calculus related skills are well practiced in this book. The exercises in this book are much more thought provoking too. 😊
As a physicist, I really like K&K more and more with age. As an undergraduate, I hated the book because the problems were fucking hard (and I had a terrible instructor to boot). But when tutoring for courses as a graduate student, I started to really like the book. And now as a postdoc, this is a nice summer/holiday read.
We used K&K for honors freshman mechanics here at UPenn, and I thought it was great! Definitely worth biting the bullet freshman year and going for the more rigorous mathematical approach. Made Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics very approachable when I got to Taylor's book.
Hi I'm approaching year 11 of high school, I'm really interested in attending UPenn for undergrad. Any advice on the application process?
@@kechi9021 If you have an interesting niche hobby or extracurricular that you've sunk a lot of time into, right about that on your essay. They're looking for a wide variety of people who do interesting things, so make sure you stand out.
As an engineer, I have to say that this book does what its title says. It's not so much that it needs prior physics, but it really assumes a thorough grasp of advanced mathematics.
When I took 8.012, we used the excellent Newtonian Mechanics, by Tony French. The lecturer was Ray Weiss.
For everybody else, "8.012" is an MIT physics course. Most MIT courses are known by their catalog number and not by name.
I'm going back to solve a lot of the problems at the moment and i've found a fair few of the problems aren't actually hard as such but they're just maddeningly open to interpretation and sometimes poorly posed where you dont know from the phrasing what assumptions you can or can't make. It explains to some extent why I had issues with its problems in the past. Other than that, the questions are good but generally doable.
In my country we use this book for preparing for high school physics Olympiad really good book with great problems(Along with David morin and Resnick Halliday Krane)
Reading this book before taking a freshman physics/calc sequence made it a difficult read. I feel like having a thorough background in trig helps tremendously, as many solutions become vastly simplified. I recall working on one exercise that took me awhile to understand the solution to, but one student showed me a solution using trig identities and solved it in a fraction of the time. I study chemistry, so I'm glad I don't have to return to this quite frankly, haha.
The topics covered by this book, plus thermodynamics, were all part of the first year course in Physics here in Italy about 25 years ago. That was before the introduction of the Bologna Process 3+2 years higher education format; I don't know if it's still the same nowadays.
The course was about 7-8 months long and it was very complete. Topics like rotating frames of reference, the usage of polar coordinates, detailed description of the motion of rigid bodies (Euler equations of motions and the like), the harmonic oscillator and the decomposition into normal modes were all considered a standard part of a first year physics student education.
The course being a whole package, there was no distinction between introductory or non-introductory. And indeed the attrition rate was pretty high: university freshmen were confronted with the full package and they had to "learn to swim or drown".
This is great! You have a very good page-turning technique, and your camera is excellent as capturing the perfect page-turning noise very well! Surprised you don’t have more subscribers
I have been eagerly watching your reviews. A topic I would like you cover, if you would be so inclined, is what texts are best at covering Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics. Thank you for the quality reviews!
I shall do so, thank you for the feedback.
I was assigned this textbook @ the Univ. of Michigan in Honors Physics as a freshman. It ended my cockiness.
Thank you for the review, and for informing us that a 2nd edition exists. I completed school about 30 years ago. I'm going to purchase a copy hoping it will serve as a reintroduction to forgotten information.
You made remembered my 2nd year when I was studying physics in Colombia. Very good times spent with friends trying to solve the problems. Unfortunately, we had a tutor who didn't know how to solve the problems, she only revised a solutions manual :(. Also it was hard because of the barrier of the language.
In the College of Engineering at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, they used a text by J.L. Meriam for a two course sequence in Classical (or Newtonian) Mechanics. I believe the title in the 1960s (when my father took the sequence) was, “Statics and Dynamics.” At that time the textbook may have been priced between $5 and $10. Definitely not more than $15. In 1989 (when I took the course sequence), they used an updated version of the same textbook that employed both SI and Imperial British units of measure that had been split up into two volumes costing about $70 apiece. So, a 10 fold increase in the cost over about a 25 year period. Growing up as a child, I had perused my father’s older edition of the textbook with a kind of mesmerized amazement at the derivative and integral symbols and wondered what kind of mathematics employed them. Many of the problems were the same in the newer edition except that they used only Imperial British units in the 60s. In 1989, incoming engineering Freshman students were confronted by this two course sequence heavily laden with real-world mechanics problems. Many students (more than half) simply changed their major after the first semester of statics (all objects at rest so that summation of forces in each of the three physical dimensions is zero). The statics course sections would typically be held in large lecture halls holding about 150 seats. The latter course, dynamics, would be held in smaller more traditional classrooms with only maybe 35 seats. I took both after having the benefit of a years of Calculus, thank Gawd! And, I also had the benefit of a year’s worth of Physics during high school. I think the thing that caused the most difficulty for students was a failure to learn how to draw a “free-body” diagram and properly represent all of the forces involved (including action-reaction pairs). I had missed a problem on our HS physics exam asking if the principal of our school weighed 200 lbm (at the surface), indicating that the earth pulled downward on him with a force vector of -200 lbs, what force then did the principal exert upon the earth? Never again forgot to take Newton’s 3rd Law into consideration.
Believe it or not, this book helped me passed General Physics 1 in Undergrad. Please review Classical Mechanics by Goldstein
I intend to do so in the future.
Hi, I'd like to ask how does it compare with University Physics by Sears and Zemansky? The latest editions of Sears and Zemansky requires some basic understanding of Line Integrals and some vector calculus (though not much). I studied the book together with The Calculus 7 by Leithold. Thanks
This book along with IE Irodov's Introduction to Mechanics were like my favorite during my high school.
From which country... do u all solve irodov in high school? 🥶🥶🥶🥶🤐🤐🤐🤐🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯😱😱😱😱😱🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙇♀️🙇♀️🙇♀️🙇♀️🙇♀️🙇♀️
@@jee2736 India.
@@divyanshagrawal3512 india mein bhai 11th se chalu krte hain log... vo bhi kuchh hi log... I'm jee aspirant from allen
Thanks for the review! I never read this one, but just seeing your video it looks a little bit like a condensed version of the "Classical Mechanics" book by Taylor. I like the Taylor book a lot and worked through two thirds of it at some point (with nearly all of the exercises), but it is quite a thick book. So this may be a good alternative for some people.
The book looks awesome in hardcover
I have one in paperback.
Had this book in my freshman year at BITS. It's really fun(in a challenging way) if you like physics.
This is an excellent book. The book I loved is Analytical Mechanics by Hand and Finch. It is somewhat of Goldstein's standard. After finishing these two books every keen learner would have to work thru Mechanics by Landau and Lifshitz
A good book to read to avoid demetia.
I'm beginning my bachelors in physics at Cornell in the fall and we have the same introductory physics sequence-we use the same book! Quite interesting!
“Mechanics for Masochists” LOL😂. I was subjected to a similar textbook with the same format, topics, including the same title as a young physics major many, many years ago. This was my first class after the normal 3 semester entry level classes as my university. Rigorous indeed! Very, very tough even for those with solid math backgrounds. Definitely NOT an “introductory” text.
Great review. I am planning to get it for self-study. Thanks for sharing. Quick question, what is the timer you have? I might be interested in getting one to keep focus on my study. Thank you!!
This is a very good mechanics book, suitable for some one who has read Resnick and Halliday.
I love Landau and Lifshitz vol 1 Mechanics: the only mechanics book I’ve seen that doesn’t even talk about forces and derives everything from scratch using only the Lagrangian
Me too, but honestly L&L works more like a senior undergrad / graduate book right between Kleppner/Kolenkow and Arnold. But if I’m only allowed to keep one classical mechanics book, L&L no questions asked.
The real infamous text book is "Classical Electrodynamics" by Jackson.
We used K&K for our introductory mechanics courses at UCSB. The problems were honestly quite enlightening and really forced you to be smart with actually making use of the conservation laws and other useful theorems.
Very true.
👋 Fellow UCSB Physics student!
@@quarkonium3795 Current student? If so good luck on midterms and maybe I'll see you in the PSR!
@@MatthewSmith-sr7kl Thank you! Yes, I'm a current student. In fact I have my last midterm of the quarter (and potentially my last UCSB midterm in my time here) in 2 hours as I write this comment. Good luck on your midterms as well!
also a current student at UCSB lol had to click when I saw KK in the thumbnail
The GOAT intro physics text book. Although it doesn't cover as mamy topics as some other books like Morin and Goldstein, the manner in which the theory and examples are presented was very digestible and atttactive (to me). I like that it is more rigorous than some books like Halliday-Resnick or Sears-Zemansky. Our first semester physics prof completely blew the opportunity to make most of this book, but I read it during high school, just out of interest, during my JEE prep, and I found it to be a very beautiful experience. I'll always have a special place for it in my heart, because it was my first physics text book.
Im not sure if you are a phsics major or not, but im gonna say this anyway, this book is meant for newtonian mechanics only, not like tyler book that add analytical mechanics. And Goldstein book is for grad student so the topics are too advenced.
what is JEE???
@@yacinematallah4413 I'm a math major but I've also taken a minor in physics, and of course, I'm aware of what you're saying, which is why I said K&K is nice despite covering fewer topics
@@user-wb4sl8ny8v IIT JEE or JEE Advanced is the joint entrance exam for different IITs and few other institutes in India. Students appear in this exam after 12th Grade. It tests students on mathematics, physics and chemistry.
@@yourlordandsaviouryeesusbe2998 can i ask you what topics could be added, because from what i have heard most advanced materials are taught under lagrangian and hamiltonian formalism, even some of what is presented in this book.
Excellent job
i kept pausing to get a better look at the table of contents and it seems like this particular text omits lagrangian/hamiltonian mechanics; is this an intro or upper level undergrad book?
when i was an undergrad we used marion/thornton's classical dynamics. absolutely fucking brutal at the time, but i started really appreciating it when i got to grad school. classical mechanics is criminally underrated, it's become my favorite branch of physics in recent times.
A student should get that book and the course material ahead of the start of class and work through it during the summer break; then, he/she will be prepared to succeed.
Was my intro Physics class at JHU in the late 70's. This book saved my GPA - made everything superclear. I didn't have a great high school physics class. Not sure about the whole thesis of this video.
Nice reference, thanks !
I think this book goes well with mit course classical mechanics 8.01sc fell 2016 for undergrad, it's a course for newtonian formalism only .
@Self-TaughtPhysicist where can I buy this book ?
This does not contain Hamiltonian mechanics where should I read it??
Not a physics major, but I do know enough physics to say that if I had needed to prop up a broken leg of a dresser in a college dorm room, this book looks like it could easily serve as the foundation for that.
Cool. Thanks for sharing.
Did they ever fix the incorrect hint for the trash can over the geyser problem, that was in the first edition?
That's the first thing I'm going to check when I buy the 2nd edition
If i remembered right, there’s a classical mechanism problem where the ans involved sqrt(17). I got this ans lot of hard work and the prof didn’t even care to check my derivation. He knew i got it right ‘cos he saw sqrt(17) there.
It is an intro mechanics text -- no mention of Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formulations. The classification of classical mechanics texts is simple: if no coverage of Lagrangians and Hamiltonians, it's introductory; if there is coverage of Lagrangians and Hamiltonians later in the text, it''s intermediate (junior/senior level); and if it starts with Lagrangians and Hamiltonians (like Goldstein or Landau and Lifshitz) it's graduate level.
Got a first edition copy of this from a used bookstore. Best use of my 9 bucks ever.
thsnks will be owner of new book soon
We used this textbook in freshman mechanics at IIT Bombay - we were engg majors and not physics majors. Most incoming freshman had a good grasp of mechanics since they had studied for the notorious JEE examination as another commenter talks about. This was a far more rigorous formulation than what our incoming knowhow was. I recall really enjoying this book - in particular a problem about a race car that revolves in a pit that was a paraboloid of revolution… good old days!
I haven't found much use of this book in IITB as most of the concepts in this book are also present in 'Concepts of Physics' by HC Verma. I'm sure every kid studying JEE has solved these books before joining college.
Y'all from IITB?
What was ur Jee rank?
You’re absolutely right - incoming freshmen are lucky to have a solid physics background already. If I recall correctly the book does venture into simple relativity (or our freshman course did I don’t remember now) which is outside of HC Verma’s scope
@@jee2736 haha I haven’t been asked that question in a while. I was AIR 188 and graduated BTech EE IITB class of 05
@@kagbox 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Which coaching did u do? What are u doing now?
please give the pdf of this book
Why is left side margin so large?
Excellent. I'll purchase this text and put it right next to my Harry Potter editions for some nightly, light, reading.
This is a very nice book; one of the gems. In my engineering freshman year, we have used, then kind of a standard, Fundamentals of Physics (Halliday-Resnick) which imho is actually a very nice commercial-product for academic consumers, terefore for my scientific-pleasure, I've also followed Ohanian's Physics which I think represents one of the best, most elegant, books ever written on any topic: a must read for true science-lovers. However, despite being bewilderingly typed and illustrated, complete in its coverege, and exceptionally successful in its exposition of subjects, the level of treatment is limited to *scientifically serious freshman* only. Now, if anyone wants to improve his skills at "Mechanics" beyond this, then the Kleppner's "An Introduction to (advanced) Mechanics" imho is the best following book between a first year freshman and a more mature classical mechanics course book. That being said, it still makes use of student intuition to clarify its concepts which makes it much accessible than the subsequent theoretical course books. And that makes it a highly readable one. I enjoyed reading it, especially its final four chapters (1st edition) on Theory of Special Relativity is much clearer and satisfying than many other "modern physics" books out there. Note: interestingly, those last-four chapters do not depend on the prior ten chapters at a level more than they are presented in a freshmen treatment, and therefore they can be read immediately for anyone completed a freshman physics course, and interested in having a rigourous and accurate understanding of STR.
Try Greenwood, Principles of Dynamics
@@ajarivas72 Thank you! That looks like a very nice engineering dynamics book, wish I can read it as quick as possible. Kleppner's book discusses theoretical aspects (scientific) of mechanics rather than computational (engineering) ones, and therefore answers more fundamental questions than available in engineering treatments. In fact, I do appreciate both aspects depending on the purpose...
Can I get a pdf of this book (from India)
Anyone have experience with both this book and the Landau-Livschitz Mechanics textbook? What are your thoughts on the two?
I'm going to review the Landau book soon.
Ah, introduction book has literal rocket science
I would like to acquire it. How can I get one unit?
How do you study a textbook as a self taught physicist? I am also trying to learn undergraduate physics by my own and whenever i am stuck i cannot ask a professor or teacher for the insight.
What do you do when you get stuck on a problem for long.?
Good question! I intend to make videos covering that exact topic in the near future.
@@Self-TaughtPhysicist will be waiting 😊
@@Self-TaughtPhysicist Please review the Soviet Union / Russian authors physics and mathematics books too. (MIR publications and Birkhäuser / Springer publications have published a lot of their famous works).
@@iamwhatiam5091 I shall check them out. Thank you.
@anuj I’m on the same journey….can we talk?
Honestly will have to check this out. Doesn't seem too bad tbh
Any chance for review of Landau-Lifshitz Course of Theoretical Physics?
Yes, very soon.
We used this for freshman physics at the University of Chicago, as well.
I recall another similar, very hard textbook about mechanics from my own schooldays; "A Course In Applied Mathematics", by D F Lawden.
I had Den Hartog's Mechanics which taught a "particle" in the radial slot of a rotating disk moved out at a constant velocity. I disagreed thinking if it gets going from v = 0 it will continue to accelerate radially. I did an experiment that showed this. The curve is exponential not Archemedian.
How much does this text differ from Introduction to Classical Mechanics by David Morin? which is also a Cambridge text
Morin has better problems, 250 of which are fully solved. Morin also contains Lagrangian mechanics, and any relevant proceedings.
I've never had a class that covered every topic in the book, there were always more complicated topics that were left out due to time constraints.
When he mentions the vectors, I had flashbacks from taking dynamics.
I would love to see a video going by "Book order to learn physics from start to finish".
Thanks for the idea.
It was a nice book I read by my own, untill it got to chapter 9. Taught me more maths than physics
Please do more videos on physics textbooks
I shall.
Please do physics from start to end.
I am trying to self study physics this summer vacation.
It will be a helpful for everyone.
“The Final Theory: Rethinking Our Scientific Legacy “, Mark McCutcheon.
That's impossible because physics in not linear sequence of topic with clear end, but it is tree which branches into different subfields deeper you go.
I wonder on what the content of the continuation could be .. Advanced Mechanics 🤔
Hi..
Is there any book for electric circuit analysis with that level of toughness.
I am not electrical engineer, but generaly toughness may come in different forms. Every book or topic may be difficult in different aspect.
I can't do calculus. Makes me ineligible for anything until I can. What gets me is that I once could.
Differentiate and Integrate. Simply. Granted, simply.
But I understood the notion.
I was studying by correspondence Engineering Surveying with the NSW Tafe and as part of this course came this intro to calculus.
And that intro had me, just on the strength of two or three lesson papers delivered weekly or bi weekly, calculating all kinds of weird things via calculus. Extracting roots I think I remember. Calculating volumes of course - the surveying aspect. But firmly understanding the notion of rate of change of rate of change and able to apply it in all kinds of uninstinctive areas.
Years later after it was long forgotten I tried to relearn.
And I looked here and there and everywhere. In these latter years on the web. YT vids and everything. Downloaded books.
Everyone claims to 'make it easy'.
What's that online school thing that kinda makes itself out to be the best of the best? Khan academy I think?
None of them, including it, could get it back into me.
Despite them all using far more words than were ever used by that anonymous (today, sadly, can't get a line on him anyway I try) teacher way back then.
Khan academy being the worst, not the best. They had me going back to almost the very beginning of mathematics and wanted to cover every possible thing on the way there...
I tell this anecdote just because this thing prompted it... such things always prompt a similar reaction - 'outburst' - from me.
Perhaps of some interest to some, of itself.
But also perhaps in some hope of finding some person/s who have some insight into this 'obfuscation of a simple thing', which is what I now see it as. Else how could he have got it through to me so well, so rapidly, so easily?
So I'll look at this 'A quick calculus, a self teaching guide' that this book here suggests will provide the necessary calculus.
:)
I've heard of unboxings, but this unbooking is a first for me
😂
This was my MOW textbook in my freshman year in BITS Pilani and I went felt like it was very much an extension to my highschool CBSE. I did all those book back exercises in that textbook lol.
I need a book like that, but with ALL the answers in the back, and MANY worked solutions for many of them as well.
When self studying, it's ok to se the answers and have numerous worked examples for when you get stuck. If you're truly interested in self learning, you wont cheat by looking, you'll actually try to solve them before looking, and then figuring out where you went wrong.
when you lack someone to help you, you NEED SOLVED EXAMPLES!!!!!!!!!!
I have helped a great many people using worked examples, often using my work or their attempts as my worked problems. I have a whole process to helping people learn to not fear math and figure out how to get good at it. but I'm also Not a mathematician or physicist that does problems all day long, and so I need refreshers too. I need books to help refresh myself at times. Sometimes it can be years between practice, and you forget a lot.
How about buying a camera stand?
Got it setup now.
Why would glossy paper be an advantage?
It's natural that best universities, such as MIT, choose to use more advanced courses. In MIPT, the best Russian university for physics, we used Mechanics by Prof. Sivukhin, volume one of his fundamental five-volume course on general physics, two times thicker than this book. It included more or less same topics as in this book, but on top of that fluid motion, stress tensor and other advanced topics. It was a hard work, very hard work, but at the end that made you a top-level physicist.
I think I got mine when it was thick xeroxed set of pages handed out in the MIT Physics office about 1989
The contents seem to me to be very appropriate for an introductory course to mechanics. It is reasonable to have some basic physics background if you intend to tackle mechanics. Almost 50 years ago, we took Goldstein's Classical Mechanics as the textbook for a second course in mechanics, introducing Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formulations. I admit I struggled with this. Yet, an introductory text (such as K&K) that avoids these formulations and is elegantly presented seems appropriate. I wish I had K&K to give me a solid grounding. For masochists? Come on! You need to have some background in physics and calculus if you are half serious about mechanics ...
I recommend solving I E Erodove if you want a challanging set of problems
"Introduction to mechanics"
500 pages
the book basically describes all of solid mechanics
thank you MIT very cool
I have this book, I used it to teach introductory classical mechanics for physics sophomores....excellent book!
kleppner is our freshman messiah here at bar ilan
I temember the “Shorter Oxford Dictionary” was a weighty tome.
"Problems worthy of attack prove their worth by hitting back!"
fascinating
“The Final Theory: Rethinking Our Scientific Legacy “, Mark McCutcheon for proper physics.
I don't know, I think going into things like the Lorentz transformation and special relativity may be hurtful to first year Phys students that are starting with mechanics. The notes on differentials and stuff would be beneficial though as I feel most first year students know nothing about them despite using them, albeit elementarily. I just finished a course on special and general relativity and it was honestly very challenging when it came to Lorentz transformation and proving invariance. This does not seem like something that classical mechanics or even classical electromagnetic students need to deal with. I think these topics may be better left for a dedicated course.
I would also add that frames of reference and velocity reciprocity need to be talked about more in the introductory Phys courses as they're not relativity as some people seem to think.
Nothing comes close to any book in level of difficulty than any book authored by Timoshenko. The phrase of his that I came to dread was: "It is left to the student to derive ...". And actually, I think this course is pretty easy as at Georgia Tech, what is covered by one required course at MIT is covered in about four different required courses. So significantly more depth and excruciating assignments and tests.