Classical Mechanics For Physics Graduate Students

Intended for first year physics graduate students who wish to learn about analytical mechanics, this text deals with Lagrangians and Hamiltonians. Also included are chapters on particle motion, oscillations, co-ordinate systems and rigid bodies. Perturbation theory, relativistic mechanics and two case studies of continuous systems are also presented. Each subject is approached at progressively higher levels of abstraction. Lagrangians and Hamiltonians are first presented in an inductive way, leading up to general proofs. Hamiltonian mechanics is expressed in Cartan’s notation and the text includes a self-contained account of the traditional formulation.