Classical Mechanics

This textbook takes a broad yet thorough approach to mechanics, aimed at bridging the gap between classical analytic and modern differential geometric approaches to the subject.​ Developed by the author from 35 years of teaching experience, the presentation is designed to give students an overview of the many different models used through the history of the field—from Newton to Lagrange—while also painting a clear picture of the most modern developments. Throughout, it makes heavy use of the powerful tools offered by Mathematica​.

This second volume of Mechanical Systems, Classical Models, deals with the dynamics of systems consisting of discrete particles as well as continuous systems. While differences between these models are highlighted, the generality of the proofs and corresponding computations yields results that are expressed in a common form for both discrete and continuous systems.

This accessible monograph introduces physicists to the general relation between classical and quantum mechanics based on the mathematical idea of deformation quantization and describes an original approach to the theory of quantum integrable systems developed by the author.The first goal of the book is to develop of a common, coordinate free formulation of classical and quantum Hamiltonian mechanics, framed in common mathematical language.In particular, a coordinate free model of quantum Hamiltonian systems in Riemannian spaces is formulated, based on the mathematical idea of deformation quantization, as a complete physical theory with an appropriate mathematical accuracy.

This is a textbook on classical mechanics at the intermediate level, but its main purpose is to serve as an introduction to a new mathematical language for physics called geometric algebra. Mechanics is most commonly formulated today in terms of the vector algebra developed by the American physicist J. Willard Gibbs, but for some applications of mechanics the algebra of complex numbers is more efficient than vector algebra, while in other applications matrix algebra works better. Geometric algebra integrates all these algebraic systems into a coherent mathematical language which not only retains the advantages of each special algebra but possesses powerful new capabilities.