Mechanics: Volume 1 (Course of Theoretical Physics S)

All the books in the Landau series are great. I have the Quantum Mechanics volume (haven't read it but I know is not relativistic), the Classical Theory of Fields (I have gone through parts of it, basically it is about Electromagnetism and the General Theory of Relativity or the classical theory of Gravitation), this one brings good passages in GR. I also have the one about Statistical Physics (haven't read it) aaah and also the one on Quantum Electro-Dynamics which should be great, I have gone through it lightly. BUT, I do have thoroughly studied and gone through The Classical Mechanics Volume which is the one I am reviewing here. IT IS A DELIGHT! It is clear, short, to the point and it brings many done exercises as examples of applying the Theory, Lev Landau was a genius Physicist from the Soviet Union and in this book it really shows it. One of the things I most remember about the book is the proof he does about the Jacobi identity, this identity is easily shown to be satisfied when using commutators in Quantum Mechanics by using Matrix algebra, but here Landau does it for Poisson Brackets which is not so easy and he does it marvelous so good! Recommended eyes closed!

Arguably, everything that could possibly be said about the L&L textbook on classical mechanics (L&L-I for short) have already been said here in these reviews and elsewhere. But I would like to add my voice to the crowd that really likes this textbook.I am fond of classical mechanics, and I hold a host of "classics" in the field in my personal library: L&L-I, Goldstein, Kibble, Siegel & Moser, Sommerfeld, Arnold, Lanczos, Whittaker, and Mach, besides some general relativity texts (you may be missing Abraham & Marsden and Gallavotti's "The Elements of Mechanics" from the list, but I am not -- I miss the exquisite text by Sudarshan & Mukunda). In every one of these texts I can find something that I dislike---excessive rigour, lack of figures, verbosity, crazy exercises, etc. (sometimes in combination...)---, but I can hardly find any fault in L&L-I.The choice of topics in L&L-I is just exactly (imho) what a working physicist must know by heart. Some complain that it does not deal adequately with nonlinear dynamics, chaos, etc., but this critique is unfair: the book does not cover all you may want know about classical mechanics, but definitely covers everything you *must* know about classical mechanics. Moreover, it was written ~70 years ago, way before the "chaos revival" of the 1980's.Recently, I came across at the library with a little book that I found well written, concise, rigorous, and with a very nice blend of classical and modern subjects: "Lagrangian and Hamiltonian Mechanics," by M. G. Calkin. Nowadays, if I had to teach a second course on classical mechanics for undergraduates I would use L&L I + Calkin (despite the somewhat picky review by Robert Weinstock on Calkin's textbook on Am. J. Phys. 66(3), 261-262 (1998)].P.S.: The printing quality is very uneven and disappointing. Some of the smaller printing (in the exercises) is barely readable. The book is not a cheap $9.99 paperback, so the puny printing quality is unacceptable. Guess what: printed and bound in China... I will feel lucky if the ink does not contain lead, mercury, wasted nuclear material, etc. Attention, editorial houses: come printing your books in Brazil!

This book is not for someone to learn classical mechanics from. In a nutshell this book shows where the symmetries of physics and the conservation laws come from. This book is not meant to show what happens when you fall off the roof. Symmetries and conservation laws play a big role in Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Field theory, plus various other branches of physics.All the formulations in this book use Action integrals, the Lagrangian and the Hamiltonian. Learning this book can save a lot of frustration when the things this book covers show up in more advanced physics courses. It is also a good reference book to use when the things in this book do show up in later physics courses and you need a good review.To explain it the best way I know how, this book is the nuts and bolts of what is going on behind the scenes of physics. Why Newton's equations act they way they do. This book adds the maturity to what you already know about classical mechanics and more advanced physics.Most of the physics you take from now on depend on the formulation of the ideas of this book in one way or another. Some of the formulations of QM. depend on the Hamilton-Jacobi equation which this book covers. Simply put this book is the level of maturity you need to be at to move on to more advanced physics courses.This book does an excellent job of covering these topics. It has the solutions to almost all the problems in the book making it the perfect book for self study. This book covers just the right amount of material and no more, so there is no fluff. The book is written in such a style that it is a easy read. It has just the right balance between understanding concepts and the mathematics.This book is the bridge to the next level of physics. This book gives the right background so in the future you do not memorize a bunch of equations without understanding how they came about. The ideas in this book permeate all of physics, not just Classical Mechanics.Some previous exposure to Action integrals, the Lagrangian and the Hamiltonian are really a must. Again this is not a book to learn how to do Mechanics from, but the why, Newtons equations act the way they do.