A Treatise on the Analytical Dynamics of Particles and Rigid Bodies

Cambridge Mathematical Library

by Edmund Taylor Whittaker, Sir William McCrae (Foreword)

There can be few books on mathematical mechanics as famous as this, a work that forms a comprehensive account of all the classical results of analytical dynamics.

Genres: Physics, Science

480 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1924

About the author

1873-

Reviews

[Magma · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is by many accounts something of a seminal classic, as it referenced in many of the more modern standard texts on the subject.
It, interestingly, chooses to develop Lagrange's equation's by way of Netwon's force laws and the notion of virtual displacement. Subsequently, the energy equation, Routhian formalism, and psuedotime equations are derived.
Whittaker is quite thorough in his exposition on the origin of a given technique or equation. His references and citations include (but are not limited to) Lagrange, Newton, d'Alembert, Galileo, Huygens, Legendre, and Hamilton.
A rather dense read with nothing in the way of pictures or diagrams.

[Douglas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay, so nobody has reviewed this book. I'm not surprised. I decided to say something because I have a little anecdote. I once attended a lecture given by the late Max Dresden who wrote a book about the great Dutch physicist, H. A. Kramers. Some of you will be familiar with Kramers' book on Quantum Mechanics which, for many, is no easy read. According to Dresden, part of the reason is that Kramers fought it out tooth and nail with Whittaker's Treatise on the Analytical Dynamics of Particles and Rigid Bodies. He wrestled it to the floor until he understood every equation and relationship. As I recall, Dresden said that Kramers found it a great source of emotional stress.

So why venture to read such a book? (And here I must make a disclaimer that my forays into this book fall far short of Kramers mastery.) The reason is that several times I have come across references to it in my reading and such references seem always to be associated with cutting edge physics. One such area has to do with adelphic integrals which play an important role in non-linear dynamics. (DRAFT, more to come)