Elements of Mechanics

Rezensionen / Stimmen

"This textbook is unique in many respects. It gives the reader a sense of being part of a lively and personal conversation about physics, engaging your attention from the first page. Advanced mathematical concepts are introduced as a prelude to further study while still maintaining the appropriate level for a first-year calculus-based course. But the most innovative feature of this text is the emphasis on thinking and reasoning about physics starting from basic principles. As a teacher, I often have the goal of developing critical analysis skills in my students; this textbook shows the way."
-Dr. Tom Steele, University of Saskatchewan

"In this delightfully fresh take on the well-worn subject of classical Newtonian mechanics, Patrick Kelly adopts the informal approach of a classroom teacher, using a wealth of thoroughly worked examples to illustrate and develop the concepts introduced at each step of the journey on which his readers are taken. The journey actually covers a lot of ground. Starting from basic kinematical notions, such as average velocity, we are eventually led to appreciate ideas (for example, the fact that orbits under an inverse-square law of force are conic sections) that are quite sophisticated at this introductory level.
Students faced with learning, more or less simultaneously, both basic physics and essential mathematical tools, such as calculus, will appreciate the deftness with which Kelly uses each set of ideas to illuminate the other. Readers will quickly warm to his engaging, and distinctively personal style, with its frequent flashes of humour, and will value the depth of understanding afforded both by the many sidelights he offers and by the alternative treatments he gives for many of the examples from complementary points of view. Those who work systematically through the text, and at least a selection of the 428 problems that supplement it, will gain not only the ability to tackle standard problems with confidence but also the sense that this territory is now home turf."
-Ian D. Lawrie, UnifiedGrandTours.org, and author of A Unified Grand Tour of Theoretical Physics, Third Edition