Textbooks

By no means an exhaustive list, these are all texts that I have consulted and find good explanations for different concepts. It is especially important to gather different perspectives and descriptions of concepts from many sources. The Required textbook covers the essential material, but I will not necessarily follow just this text. I will point out reading assignments on the course Calendar page.

Required

Classical Mechanics, H. Goldstein, C. Poole & J. Safko (Third Edition, 2002)

• Many consider the standard in advanced classical mechanics.
• There is also an Errata page that is worth consulting. I will try to identify any errors when selecting homework sets but take this into consideration.

Suggested

Theoretical Mechanics of Particles and Continua, A.L. Fetter and J.D. Walecka

• this is a good textbook although a bit dense at times. I taught this class using this textbook for a couple of years (inherited syllabus) and have slowly switched to Goldstein et al. I will use problems from this book and suggest readings from time to time.

Classical Dynamics of Particles and Systems, S.T. Thornton and J.B. Marion (Fifth Edition)

• Often used for advanced undergraduate.

Classical Mechanics, J.R. Taylor

• an excellent intermediate-level textbook, generally used for upper-level undergraduate. Taylor also won an Emmy Award for his television series Physics 4 fun.

Additional

Lectures on Classical Dynamics, D. Tong

• These are online-only
• This set of classical mechanics notes are great (check out all the other topical notes therein too), but they are organized in a different fashion to this course.

Mechanics, L. Landau & E. Lifshitz

Mathematical Methods of Classical Mechanics, V.I. Arnold