Modern Introductory Mechanics, Parts 1 and 2

This is a two semester introductory classical mechanics text, on the level of Marian and Thorton. It is approximately 320+255 pages long, with 130+106 problems. Part I has been repaired (the Mac Word version had gotten corrupted) and Part II has been revised (2006 and 2014) and a Part II Word version is now posted. The coverage of material includes some unusual topics in variational techniques and deterministic chaos. (Some of the inspiration for the variational material is the unpublished text, “Variational Mechanics”, my father wrote.) I have not had a chance to teach the second semester as often as the first, so the text is not as developed, with a number of topics lacking and others being treated rather brusquely. However, my treatment of relativity is more complete than usual, and I introduce the idea of covariant and contravariant vectors and tensors, which is unusual at this level. I would like to add a section on particle accelerators as well as to discuss particle interactions and decays. I need to add a chapter on wave motion.

The Archives section discusses the evolution of these chapters, which is complicated, and has older versions available. Both Parts I and II of this text are an exception to my rule of not maintaining OSX versions, since these chapters were successfully converted to OSX Mac Word. (Part II Word and PDF posted Jan., 2014.)

Note that Parts I and II are now available on the wonderful, free Bookboon website. They have brought to the web the Open Text concept of free educational materials in a tasteful commercial environment. Kudos to them!