Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics

  • 9 Want to read
Locate

My Reading Lists:

Create a new list


  • 9 Want to read

Buy this book

Last edited by ImportBot
April 21, 2025 | History

Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics

  • 9 Want to read

This textbook takes an innovative approach to the teaching of classical mechanics, emphasizing the development of general but practical intellectual tools to support the analysis of nonlinear Hamiltonian systems. The development is organized around a progressively more sophisticated analysis of particular natural systems and weaves examples throughout the presentation. Explorations of phenomena such as transitions to chaos, nonlinear resonances, and resonance overlap to help the student to develop appropriate analytic tools for understanding. Computational algorithms communicate methods used in the analysis of dynamical phenomena. Expressing the methods of mechanics in a computer language forces them to be unambiguous and computationally effective. Once formalized as a procedure, a mathematical idea also becomes a tool that can be used directly to compute results. (Publisher's Description)

Publish Date
Publisher
The MIT Press
Language
English
Pages
526

Buy this book

Edition Availability
Cover of: Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics
Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics
2015, MIT Press
in English
Cover of: Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics
Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics
2015, MIT Press
in English
Cover of: Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics
Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics
2015, MIT Press
in English
Cover of: Structure and interpretation of classical mechanics
Structure and interpretation of classical mechanics
2014
in English - Second edition.
Cover of: Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics
Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics
2001, MIT Press
in English
Cover of: Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics
Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics
March 19, 2001, The MIT Press
Hardcover in English
Cover of: Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics
Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics
March, 2001, MIT Press
Hardcover in English

Add another edition?

Book Details


Classifications

Library of Congress
QC125.2.S895 2001, QC125.2 .S895 2001

The Physical Object

Format
Hardcover
Number of pages
526
Dimensions
9 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
Weight
2.3 pounds

Edition Identifiers

Open Library
OL9701825M
ISBN 10
0262194554
ISBN 13
9780262194556
LCCN
00051971
OCLC/WorldCat
45223598
LibraryThing
243621
Goodreads
245484

Work Identifiers

Work ID
OL16797774W

Excerpts

Computational algorithms are used to communicate precisely some of the methods used in the analysis of dynamical phenomena. Expressing the methods of variational mechanics in a computer language forces them to be unambiguous and computationally effective. Computation requires us to be precise about the representation of mechanical and geometric notions as computational objects and permits us to represent explicitly the algorithms for manipulating these objects. Also, once formalized as a procedure, a mathematical idea becomes a tool that can be used directly to compute results.

Active exploration on the part of the student is an essential part of the learning experience. Our focus is on understanding the motion of systems; to learn about motion the student must actively explore the motion of systems through simulation and experiment. The exercises and projects are an integral part of the presentation.

That the mathematics is precise enough to be interpreted automatically allows active exploration to be extended to it. The requirement that the computer be able to interpret any expression provides strict and immediate feedback as to whether the expression is correctly formulated. Experience demonstrates that interaction with the computer in this way uncovers and corrects many deficiencies in understanding.

In this book we express computational methods in Scheme, a dialect of the Lisp family of programming languages that we also use in our introductory computer science subject at MIT. There are many good expositions of Scheme. We provide a short introduction to Scheme in an appendix.
added by bryan newbold.

Describes the philosophy of the text

Links outside Open Library

Community Reviews (0)

No community reviews have been submitted for this work.

Lists

History

Download catalog record: RDF / JSON / OPDS | Wikipedia citation
April 21, 2025 Edited by ImportBot Redacting ocaids
November 12, 2023 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
September 28, 2021 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
August 26, 2020 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
April 30, 2008 Created by an anonymous user Imported from amazon.com record