
Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics - luu
http://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/titles/content/sicm/book-Z-H-5.html#%_chap_Temp_2
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reikonomusha
Just to note for people who know about SICP: this book is not like that. The
book jumps straight into basic principles of Lagrangian mechanics, talking
about the least action principle and the Euler-Lagrange equations. It is not
"mechanics 101 for smart people" like SICP is for computer science.

With that said, the computational approach they take is unique and useful.
You'd especially like it if you like Scheme and the coding style found in
SICP.

~~~
tgb
On the idea of "mechanics 101 for smart people" \- can anyone recommend good
books that are the analogs of SICP for other subjects? I'd love to know ones
for, say, genetics or evolution as well as stats.

I can say that Hubbard + Hubbard "Vector Calculus, Linear Algebra, and
Differential Equations" does a good job of being that for vector calculus
specifically and for exposure to theoretical mathematics.

~~~
CurtMonash
On a more elementary level, Michael Spivak's Calculus is an amazing book on
first-year calculus.

He also wrote Calculus on Manifolds and a 5-volume series on Differential
Geometry. Those, to put it mildly, were rougher going.

I actually once got a crush on a dorm-mate in large part because I saw
Calculus on Manifolds on her bookshelf. It wasn't reciprocal, however. Later
in life, she went on to run the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

~~~
ics
> I actually once got a crush on a dorm-mate in large part because I saw
> Calculus on Manifolds on her bookshelf. It wasn't reciprocal, however. Later
> in life, she went on to run the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

I had someone I'd never met before see my copy which happened to be the
international edition (in Chinese, with English in the back) and then assume I
spoke fluent Mandarin. Your story's a lot better :)

~~~
CurtMonash
I lived 3 years in a Harvard grad school dormitory. One meets a variety of
interesting people in such a place. E.g., I once pitched a foreign policy
maven dorm-mate on caring more about Africa ... and it was
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Dobriansky](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Dobriansky),
who 25 years later had a very major role in combating AIDS. But
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Pipes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Pipes)
was a jerk who couldn't stomach losing to a math student at Scrabble. :)

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bsaul
For those interested, Leonard susskin video course in stanford ( can be found
anywhere ) on classical mechanics is one of the most beautiful piece of
intellectual material i've ever been given the chance to see.

~~~
dfan
Yes, it was amazing. The good news is that it was turned into a book, The
Theoretical Minimum. The bad news is that the book was really disappointing.
I'm more of a learn-by-reading than learn-by-watching person, but Susskind's
lectures are amazing.

~~~
bsaul
I don't think a book could ever compare to 20 hours of classroom video when
you've got the chance to have such a great professor. The pace, repititions,
emphasis, hands gesture, hesitations, pauses, are also helping you understand
and digest the course ( as with every human communication). Frankly what Mr
susskind has done with this stanford program is truely the work of a great
man.

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mikevm
PDF typeset with LaTeX edition:
[http://www.fisica.net/mecanicaclassica/struture_and_interpre...](http://www.fisica.net/mecanicaclassica/struture_and_interpretation_of_classical_mechanics_by_gerald_jay_sussman.pdf)

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cybp
For those who have not seen it, this is based on SCMUTILS -- an open source
symbolic manipulation engine, much like Mathematica or Maple. It is extremely
powerful, and the book is worth reading just to understand the design patterns
used there.

To give an example, in a dozen lines of readable, intuitive code, you can:

* write a lagrangian as a normal Scheme function

* symbolically take derivatives of that to get equations of motion

* print those equations with LaTeX.

* compile those equations to native code and numerically integrate and plot the motion of the system

It's like magic the first time you see it.

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auvrw
ever since watching sussman's talk [http://www.infoq.com/presentations/We-
Really-Dont-Know-How-T...](http://www.infoq.com/presentations/We-Really-Dont-
Know-How-To-Compute) i've been curious to see these details. really good post.

the jibe about, "our competitors," at the end of the preface left a bad taste
in my mouth, though. i'd really like to think that was tongue-in-cheek and
people as tenured as these guys, if anyone, can afford to think of math and
science as the collaborative effort that it is rather than a competition.

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DonGateley
Wow! Last night I picked up Dirac's little "Lectures on Quantum Mechanics" and
stumbled at the start because my '60s mechanics education didn't include the
Lagrangian, much less the Hamiltonian.

Today comes this and it should be more than enough for me to give Dirac
another solid whack! Maybe enough, even, to come out the other side given
another fundamental or two.

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cf
Comparing this page to the Feynman Lectures from earlier in the week, it's
really amazing how far latex typography has come in the last few years. Now we
all use MathJax.

