No-Nonsense Classical Mechanics: A Student-Friendly Introduction

I agree with the favorable remarks made by the six previous reviewers: This is a useful book for anyone who is learning for the first time or who is going back to re-acquaint themselves with what they used to know. In contrast to most of the standard texts in this formal subject, the author has managed to convey his personality and philosophy of teaching with a sense of humor. This is reinforced by his generous use of figures/diagrams and by the wide margins that let his annotations (and the reader's own scribbled notes) be located just where they belong. I admire the design and production of the book: It lies open easily at the selected page. The typography and the page layout generate a text with enough white space to let the reader relax and mull over the ideas being presented. (I'm writing here about the paperback version of the book; I'm guessing that the Kindle version would not be as friendly) As others have pointed out, Schwichtenberg's book lacks the problem sets needed to be the only text for a university course. However, the price is so modest and the content is so enlightening that should be strongly recommended.

I am writing this review after reading this book and the Quantum Mechanics book from cover to cover. I wanted to write a review after reading all the No-Nonsense series books from cover to cover. But I noticed that my opinion of this series will not change by further reading. They say about a novel that it should move your heart, stimulate your mind, and touch your soul. Otherwise it is not a novel. Very unfortunately, we have long forgotten that this lesson should also apply to physics (and other science) books. The No-Nonsense Series gives a rap on the knuckles of graduate text book writers to wake up to this age-old dictum. Every page of the two books in this series I read from cover to cover stimulated my heart, mind, and soul. Why? Because on every page I saw not only equations but, more importantly, connections between various perspectives, aspects, and even fields of physics. I cannot say anything more because the rest is details which more learned people than me have already expressed. Since a few years I am noticing a trend in physics books where a new breed of Young Turks are appearing on the horizon of science, like Huns on the horizons of Rome, and telling the academic establishment that if you cannot deliver good stuff then we will. Most of these Young Turks are unknown, and have no influence or positions in the academic world, like the writer of the book reviewed. To me this is a great paradigm shift which will in the long run bring Nobel Prizes in Physics to outsiders who have nothing to do with the academic world. "Outside writers" today, "Outside Nobel Prize Winners tomorrow" - this seems to be the paradigm shift, at least to me.

The No-Nonsense series should be part of the syllabus, or even the main textbooks for every introductory physics curriculum. I really appreciate the work of the author, since nowadays, in this era of super specialization, the basics are being forgotten little by little. The traditional introductory physics books tend to be so wordy, so full of useless examples. The No-Nonsense series shows the whole picture, something that should be done in every subject. From there, it is easy to know where one is going, and how every new concept fits, and is deduced from previous ones. Learning Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics from the very beginning, is absolutely fantastic. One of the things I like the most, is the presentation of Classical Mechanics from different arenas. I did not know, for instance, about the Koopman-Von Neumann formulation. Everything is to be gained from studying one subject from different points of view. Brilliant books. Thanks to the author.

This book does a great job at explaining classical mechanics to beginners. The author remembers the challenges he encountered when learning the subject and thus is in an ideal position to teach beginners. His style is engaging and enthusiastic; the book almost reads like a novel! Compared to Susskind’s “The Theoretical Minimum” (Vol. 1 on classical mechanics), another great book, Schwichtenberg’s book goes further and into more details. Even if you have read and understood the TTM books, I recommend reading this book. In particular chapter 7 (on point transformations, gauge transformations, and canonical transformations), chapter 11 (on Hamilton-Jacobi mechanics, statistical mechanics, and Koopman-von Neumann mechanics), and chapter 12 (on the origins of classical mechanics) provide valuable additional information. I also have the author’s earlier book “Physics from Symmetry”. Compared to PfS, this book is much easier to read. The explanations are more detailed, step-by-step, and sometimes multiple perspectives are presented.

I hope I had this book while learning classical mechanics back in college. More often than not, learning classical mechanics reduced to remembering and applying the machinery of Euler-Lagrange equations to solve different practical problems. This book focused on the fundamental aspect of classical mechanics, while being crystal clear. I really enjoyed reading the whole book! The first read is like reading a novel! To be honest, the last few chapters, i.e., the derivations of Noether's theorem, the true physical meaning of Lagrange, and the interpretation of least action principle, are already worth the money I spent! I am sure I will re-read the book from time to time to appreciate the beauty of derivations in classical mechanics.

Jakob Schwichtenberg's No-Nonsense Classical Mechanics is transforming my efforts to learn physics at a college level. I am a retired high school math teacher and I've been trying to use Maple computer algebra software and various books to teach myself classical physics, and hopefully, quantum mechanics and relativity eventually. I have some good books--Wolfson and Pasachoff's Physics, Frank Wang's Physics with Maple, Susskind's The Theoretical Minimum, and Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences by Mary Boas. But it just wasn't coming together for me until I started reading Schwichtenberg's book. Wolfson's Newtonian textbook is a very accessible reference work, but way too detailed for my needs. Susskind's book is the kind of thing I've been looking for, but he presupposes too much prior knowledge and doesn't build up the presentation in the truly student-friendly way that Schwichtenberg does. Wang's book gives you the tools to learn physics using Maple, but also presupposes way more than any undergraduate level student knows. Boas' book is also an accessible reference work, but do you really need to know ordinary differential equations before you learn the calculus of variations? For me, it's challenging enough just to learn multivariate calculus. With Schwichtenberg's book, I'm off and running now and can use Maple and these other books selectively to go into greater depth on select topics and solve exercises without losing the forest for the trees. Thank you, Jakob Schwichtenberg!

My main interest is understanding quantum physics (I have BS/MS Physics), but I have found that in order to understand quantum physics all the books I have previously seen only provide a brief non-intuitive background of Lagrangian and Hamiltonian models which are then used as the basis for quantum theory. This has left me much like the audience watching a magician pulling rabbits out of hats. This author, Jakob Schwichtenberg, is the first author I have encountered who makes a serious attempt to fill this gap by giving clear explanations of what is really going on with the Hamiltonian and Lagrangian models, and especially how those models connect to symmetry and Noether's Theorem )which again is one of those rabbits that no one else seems able to explain). Equations of motion, variational calculus, and real (Newton), configuration (Lagrange) and phase (Hamilton) spaces are all explained and tied together in one user-friendly harmonious package. To give context to my opinion, I had just finished Goldstein (1st edition) cover to cover, and while I "understood" what I read, I didn't really "get it". Schwichtenberg's book all of a sudden put Goldstein in a fully understandable light. Note: a couple of years ago I tried reading the author's "Physics from Symmetry", and while I found it interesting, there was much I was unable to grasp. However, after reading No-Nonsense Classical Mechanics cover to cover, I now feel empowered to give the Symmetry book another try.

This is a very readable presentation of the foundations of classical mechanics. It roughly covers the same material as “The Theoretical Minimum: What You Need to Know to Start Doing Physics” by Susskind and Hrabovsky, but in a much more thorough manner. In fact the author is so thorough that somewhere in chapter 7, one has the feeling that the author is approaching the material with all the grace of a drunken lumberjack chasing butterflies with a sledgehammer. However, some people just need their butterflies smashed to smithereens. This book will not teach you how to build bridges or calculate orbital satellite positions, but it does show how classical mechanics blends into statistical mechanics and quantum mechanics. One important topic it leaves out is chaos, but that would take another whole book.

This work is a revelation for learning a mathematical topic from a book. With the clever tricks of writing out the transforms applied in every line of a derivation and the repetition of important concepts you can just read this book like a popular science book. It works if you read a chapter or two every other evening but you gain an understanding similar to a few years after attending a lecture on this topic and not accustomed with calculating stuff anymore but deeply familiar what all the equations mean. I do recommend this book highly but also the whole no-nonsense series. However, so far I believe this is the best out of the series - but I still need to read the quantum field theory book.

Wow what an amazing book. For me as someone who wants to understand how the world works but isn't especially interested in doing a ohysics course at university the world has been a difficult place. Pop science books cover a lot of modern physics but mostly in an unsatisfying manner that doesn't help understand why things are. University level textbooks give the correct information but are cluttered with extra information not really important to my quest (though obviously essential if you actually want to be a physicist. Leonard Susskind with his Theoretical Minimum series opened the door for me by explaining the mathematics without the clutter. This was a huge step forward for me. But there was something missing from these that I wasn't entirely satisfied. Jakob Schwichtenberg provides the exact answer to the problem. Anyone looking to understand modern classical mechanics (and therefore take the first necessary step towards understanding modern physics) but who doesn't want to do a ohysics degree; here is your answer. He takes Susskind's Idea of cutting out the cruft and the problem solving techniques and focuses on the key to understanding how the world works. But what this book adds is a beautifully structured way of understanding. The way he groups the 3 arenas to give the three formulations of classical mechanics (Newtonian, Lagrangian, Hamiltonian) was a game changer. Suddenly I could see how everything fit together and related back and forth. That in itself was worth the purchase price. But what makes this one of the best (if not the best) science books I've ever read is the explanations of how the Action principle and Lagrangians come to be. I feel like my understanding made a quantum leap. Also exceptional are his derivations and general handling of the maths. Every single line is explained. There are no sudden leaps that require you to work out 3 pages of maths or remember an equation you saw 50 pages ago. Everything is referenced, explained and often restated where it is used. So if you want to understand modern physics at a deep level but don't want to do a degree - or even if you are doing a degree because this gives structure to the random seeming things taught there - buy this book. You won't regret it. I've already bought the other books in the series and can't wait to read them.

Phenomenal book. The author is really good at distilling the theory into the most essential concepts and applying them to simple systems to help the reader understand the core ideas (you're not overwhelmed with complex examples). Calculations are given with many details and you're not lost in physics jargon. I wasn't sure if this book would be a gimmick at first, but I'm happy to say it isn't. The comments and pictures are helpful too. As a mathematician, I found the presentation to be extremely clear and pleasant, which is pretty much the opposite I experienced whenever I tried to delve into other physics publications.

I received this book only recently, and have not studied it seriously yet, but I have had a quick look. My impression is that it reads easily, has a broad coverage, is profusedly illustrated, and has an interesting style of instruction that is quite appealing to self-study.

Dire que c'est le meilleur livre d'introduction que vous pouvez trouver peut sembler exagéré, car évidemment il n'y a pas de "meilleur livre" du point de vue objectif, qui convienne à tout le monde à 100%. Cependant, ce livre est très proche de cet idéal impossible car il possède des caractéristiques vraiment uniques que aucun autre livre n'a (du moins ceux que j'ai lus, et il y en a beaucoup !) Langage unique : Le langage de ce livre est exceptionnellement décontracté, accessible, non intimidant et adapté aux étudiants, ce qui rend sa lecture très agréable et fluide. Tout cela, bien sûr, sans sacrifier la rigueur ou le contenu nécessaire. Style d'enseignement unique : L'auteur a un talent exceptionnel pour expliquer des choses compliquées de manière accessible. On voit à chaque page que son seul objectif est de faire comprendre au lecteur ce qu'il lit. Présentation unique des dérivations mathématiques : Les dérivations sont si bien présentées et les détails sont systématiquement donnés pour chaque étape (et même sous-étape) que vous avez une garantie à 100% de ne jamais rester bloqué dans une dérivation. Je n'ai jamais vu un tel niveau de détail dans aucun textbook existant, c'est vraiment unique et utile, surtout pour les personnes ayant des connaissances mathématiques plus limitées. Une caractéristique exceptionnelle dans un tel livre. Expérience de lecture unique : Tout textbook, même le plus intéressant et le plus adapté aux étudiants dans son style, peut parfois être "ennuyeux", simplement parce que c'est un textbook. Celui-ci se lit vraiment comme un roman. Je ne pensais pas que cela était possible avant de découvrir ce livre. L'auteur rend tout passionnant parce qu'il est tellement passionné par le sujet lui-même ! Choix unique du contenu : L'auteur a fait des choix concernant ce qu'il inclut et ce qu'il exclut de son livre. Ici, nous n'avons que les fondamentaux et aucune application complexe que l'on pourrait trouver dans d'autres livres sur le sujet. Mais les fondamentaux sont expliqués avec un niveau de détail et de profondeur de compréhension sans précédent. Un traitement aussi approfondi du sujet dans un livre d'introduction est vraiment unique. Cela donne au lecteur l'occasion de comprendre des choses que l'on comprend généralement à partir de livres beaucoup plus avancés. Ce choix de contenu et la manière de le présenter par l'auteur sont un pur génie.