Book Description

Excerpt from Analytical Mechanics for Students of Physics and Engineering The following work is based upon a course of lectures and recitations which the author has given, during the last few years, to the Junior class of the Electrical Engineering Department of the Sheffield Scientific School. It has been the author's aim to present the subject in such a manner as to enable the student to acquire a firm grasp of the fundamental principles of Mechanics and to apply them to problems with the minimum amount of mental effort. In other words economy of thought is the goal at which the author has aimed. It should not be understood, however, that the author has been led by the tendency toward reducing text-books to collections of rules, mnemonic forms, and formulæ. Rules and drill methods tend toward the exclusion of reasoning rather than toward efficiency in thinking. The following features of the treatment of the subject may be noted: In order to make the book suitable for the purposes of more than one class of students more special topics are discussed than any one class will probably take up. But these are so arranged as to permit the omission of one or more without breaking the logical continuity of the subject. In deciding on the order of the topics discussed two more or less conflicting factors have been kept before the eye, i.e., to make the treatment logical, yet to introduce as few new concepts at a time as possible. It is to secure the second of these ends, for instance, that the historical order of the development of mechanics is followed by discussing equilibrium before motion. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.