Introduction to Classical Mechanics With Problems and Solutions

My background? Ph. D. Organic Chemistry. I did not do well at math, but I'm out of school now, and done taking classes. I bought this book to self-teach myself some remedial Physics in order to facilitate a non-trivial study of quantum mechanics. What a gem of a book. The introduction is very reassuring. The material won't be learned without working problems. Working problems takes time. Part of the learning process is doing problems wrong. They never told me this in college. Not getting it right the first time convinced me I had low aptitude for this stuff. It turns out, my sufferings were a natural part of the learning process. The tone of the book is very helpful. The author wants the student to succeed. Too often, I have taken a class or tried to use a book in which the professor's attitude was "many of you will die." Not only does Morin seem to want the reader to succeed, he even gives extensive instructions on how to succeed. He starts with a whole chapter on how to solve problems, even when the reader doesn't have quite the background to solve the problem. I was able to read well into the introductory material using the free chapters Morin puts online, so I was able to determine this was the right book for what I was trying to do before I bought it. I would recommend anyone to try the free stuff. I'm having about as good a time as I could ever expect with this material. Remember, pain and suffering are normal. The limericks? Perhaps they go over my head.

A strength of this book is the very good collection of problems at the end of each chapter. There is a nice progression of complexity in the available problems. There is a diagram to accompany each problem which really helps to clarify the problem. Solutions are included for a significant number of the problems.

This is a very well written book. Good problem sets that build student knowledge along with thorough solutions provided after the problem sets. This would not be a good book for either first year physics students or first year honors physics students. They may be using this for first year honors at Harvard, but it is doubtful that the students are absorbing more that 50% of the information. There may be the exceptional student who is already grounded in Calculus and intro diff eqns along with a well developed AP physics, but most first year honors will be in over their heads. With that said, this would be a very good third year mechanics course text. The only real shortcoming is it is missing information on Hamiltonian, non-linear, chaos and such, but that could easily be supplemented during second semester. This treatise is much much better that Taylor's Classical Mechanics which is overly verbose, introduces other nomenclature at the same time it is introducing mechanics (no need to add to student's burdens by using different nomenclature than they are used to). Taylor's examples, problem and answer sets are very weak and add little value to that text. This particular text should be strongly considered for third year physics mechanics along.

Taylor’s Mechancis is exceptionally well written as compared to the other popular mechanics books at about this same level (Kleppner, Morin). However, the book is unrigorous in both its use of mathematics (after all, it's a physics book!) and its treatment of physics, especially angular rotation and the variational dynamics. That makes it a good follow up to something like Halliday for students who are content to use math and do physics heuristically; that is to say, for most engineering and science students, this book makes for a good, gentle introduction to advanced topics in dynamics. However, Taylor is not suitable as a either and introductory or intermediate text in mechanics for students interested in graduate studies which will depend on this material. Kleppner rigorously derives the classical physics theorems in limited cases, using rigorous but elementary calculus, making it a more suitable introduction to the subject. Morin unrigorously derives the classical physics theorems in generality using huristic vector calculus, making it a much more suitable follow up to Kleppner and prerequisite to Goldstein (which is the standard doctoral text). Notice, though, that Taylor covers significantly more topics than Kleppner and Morin combined. This is in the nature of things: heuristic examples are easier to explain than theorems and proofs, which affords Taylor the time to introduce some amazing applications of the theory, for example nonlinear dynamics and fluid dynamics. If you are looking for a cohesive introduction to these tangential topics, and are content to do things heuristically, there might not be a better book than Taylor. I scored Morin 4/5 because it is the only book at this level which provides a rigorous accounting of physics of angular dynamics in the general case. However, the chatty style--not just the random poems, but also in the excessive number of casual “remarks” throughout--detracts from the physics. In particular, the chapter on Lagrangian Mechanics is terribly written. There again, the treatment is more correct but less clear than in Taylor, but in this instance the line of argumentation is nearly unintelligible on a first reading. However, it should be noted that almost no books prove, in the special cases where such a proof is possible, that Newtonian and Lagrangian physics are equivalent. They all, for whatever reason, simply argue the “if” or the “only if” part of the correspondence. In reality, Morin should probably deal with Lagrangian physics as he does angular physics: break it into two chapters, the first dealing with the most important special case (Cartesian degrees of freedom), the second dealing with the general case (generalized degrees of freedom). As it stands, none of the introductory Lagrangian Mechancis books, including Goldstein, do this--however, Goldstein is at least explicit enough with the definitions so that the untreated correspondence can easily be worked out by a student on a first reading. Furthermore, it should be noted that the treatment of Special Relativity follows the “curious paradox” line of reasoning, rather than the “homomorphic equations” line of reasoning. This is the standard, but by definition it is unintuitive. Since physical--in particular, mechanical and electrical--intuition is of paramount importance in the study and application of physics, I also think this standard treatment is rather useless. Physics Professors seem to insist on treating Special Relativity after Classical Mechanics but before Classical Electromagnetism, which precludes the line of argumentation which seemed to inspire Einstein in the first place: that Maxwell's Equations, including the constant factors, ought to have the same form under suitable changes of coordinates. For this reason, I think the best treatments of special relativity can be found in books like Griffiths and Jackson, rather than books like Morin and Taylor. (Indeed, Taylor explicitly refers the reader to Griffiths, which is ridiculous since both books deploy the same mathematical machinery).

One of my favorite textbooks on classical mechanics. I enjoy this textbook because it doesn't shy away from the derivations of the equations used and it has a lot of insightful footnotes. Some of them point out common misunderstandings of the concepts presented, and others are just interesting ways of looking at the topics presented. I wouldn't recommend this as a first college textbook on classical mechanics, though. I think it functions better as a second read on classical mechanics. David Morin's book will help you flesh out the fine details of classical mechanics and really solidify your knowledge. The chapters themselves are very good, but the problems at the end of the chapters are my favorite part. David Morin did a fantastic job collecting what you would call "cute" problems. The problems will really help you build your problem solving skills. You will be forced to be creative (figuring out how to correctly set up the problem), and systematic (checking limits and such). I repeat, the material itself is introductory classical mechanics, but the problems are tougher and not "plug and chug" problems and, in my opinion, should be attempted after already learning from an easier textbook and doing easier problems from another textbook. To reiterate once again...A lot of reviews might complain about this book and give it less stars because they feel like it isn't introductory. However, the material really is standard classical mechanics. The low reviews are, in my opinion, by people who are frustrated by some of the tougher problems and who don't have as strong problem solving skills as they initially thought they did. Buy this book if you are looking to really work out your problem solving skills and are aiming to become a physicist. Those who simply want to learn classical mechanics and do simple "plug and chug" problems will have to look elsewhere.

If you want to learn undergraduate classical mechanics, this is literally the greatest investment you can make towards that goal. Morin is the GOAT of all physics writers at the undergrad level. The problems + solutions are indescribably helpful (and quite challenging!). Warning: you need to have gone through an intro course in physics for this book to be most useful to you; do not try and use this as your first exposure to mechanics. Overall, this book is so good. This review will not do it justice; please go buy it for yourself (please don't be a pdf pirate! This book is well worth the money). -Will Lancer

The following I would like to not go unsaid about this book: 1) The prose is casual and clever. 2) Surprisingly: the disarming prose does not compromise the organization of the principles and material, as I feel Griffiths' texts unfortunately do. 3) Speaking of Griffiths: Morin's problems are just as inviting of creativity (as Griffiths: the principle strength, I feel, of his texts) and encourage real "thinking outside the box" as Griffiths. They are challenging and provoke deep thought, drawing forth the depths of the reader's creativity. 4) The unique addition of physics-limericks: I find them strolling into my mind while poring over a difficult problem. They are funny (or annoying if you are looking for The Way To the Answer amidst equation-jungles (Morin's text does not appear to me as an uninformative equation-jungle)). They actually help reinforce the principles well, and succinctly describe some profound physical-principles. 5) The inclusion of problem-solving advice, and good habits to get into if you want to be a physicist. On that note: I recommend a read of this text even if you've thoroughly-completed your classical mechanics sequence. Morin encourages checking of the limiting case, examining your solution, etc., and other habits that are "in the spirit" of physics. Conclusion: this text is rich, fun to read, inviting of creativity, brimming with clever and informative prose, and will help you be a better physicist. Best of all: plenty of good physics-habits are taught by this book that are beyond the scope of classical mechanics. My heartfelt recommendation.

Excellent coverage and hand-holding explanations of what will be, for most undergrad physics majors, their first truly difficult class. Morin knows from the outset what things will be confusing and tells you not to worry, the full meaning/import of a definition or equation will come later in the chapter or else he just explains right there after introducing it. Compared to Marion and Thornton and Goldstein, Morin does the best job of introducing Lagrangian mechanics, angular momentum, special relativity, and orbital mechanics I've seen, even if at the time I was taking my undergrad CM the material seemed REALLY REALLY difficult! The examples in the book help you solve the end-of-chapter problems. Many of the worked-out problems are very good preparation for graduate preliminary exams for CM. It is essential to understand every example problem and worked-out example, and to be able to solve a lot of the solution-less problems as well. When I took CM as a grad student this book came in very handy. It's somewhat more advanced than the more common undergrad CM texts, and introduces a lot of concepts that Goldstein covers in a very obtuse, formalism-laden way. I think this book is very very good preparation for Goldstein. Even if you are past your undergrad class and about to take a Goldstein-based CM class, buy this book and refer to it often. It's only real weakness is the less in-depth coverage of Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics as compared to Goldstein. There is a freely-downloadable extra chapter on Hamiltonians on the author's web site, which helps to make up for this a bit.