Mechanics (3rd Edition) [Paperback]

Keith R. Symon (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 639 pages
• Publisher: Addison Wesley; 3 edition (January 11, 1971)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201073927
• ISBN-13: 978-0201073928
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.5 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #608,314 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great undergraduate text! perfect Goldstein supplement!, February 28, 2003

By 

Charzi "__washu__" (usa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mechanics (3rd Edition) (Paperback)

This book and Goldstein's Mechanics is all you will ever need as a practicing physicist. Symon's book has great detail and is written in a clearly understandable style that is perfect for a 2 semester course in mechanics at the advanced undergraduate level. It will also serve you well as a supplement to Goldstein's mechanics, with more examples and explicit detailed calculations, which show the steps that Goldstein sometimes glosses over.
Overall an excellent text, I have yet to see a better mechanics book at this level. I just wonder when a new edition is due out, its probably the only reason people don't use this text as THE STANDARD for all undergraduate mechanics courses.
In any event, if your studying mechanics this is the book to have!

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Symon a bad book? , I dont agree, August 6, 2001

By 

Graham M. Flower (San Jose, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mechanics (3rd Edition) (Paperback)

I have used this book extensively over many years. I have found it to be very clear and straightforward. It is fairly mathematical but nothing beyond the normal freshman/sophmore college mathematics is really needed. The problem set is excellent over 400 problems are in this book and although there are some pretty easy ones there are some real killers in there as well. Try 3.56, the effect of the earth's oblateness on satellite orbits, for example. I spent many days on this one, and I was a very good student. (the real killers are usually designated by a star). It is true that Symon does not include many examples explicitly in his book but there are easy problems in the problem sets which serve the same purpose. At some point a student needs to be able to work from a set of physical principles without examples, because when you are working on an original problem later in industry or grad school there are no examples. Symon expects this and so he is a bit more demanding than some other authors. I find Symon's mathematical development easy to follow and quite good. This is my favorite mechanics textbook and I own more than 20. There are answers to about half the problems in the book and the book is pretty free of errors and typos. (a nice feature for me) Please also note that this book has been in print for 50 years, how many poor books is that true of.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Still the best!, October 16, 2001

By 

"rtcouto" (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mechanics (3rd Edition) (Paperback)

If somebody ask me which book on Mechanics to really learn the subject using an appropriate mathematical language, only Symon comes to my mind. This is a book that influenced generations of physicists and keeps on doing it.
Even the part on analytical mechanics, which, I believe, is not among the main goals of the book, is very, very readable! I can say the same about the two chapters (13 and 14) on Relativity -- and here goes a suggestion: these two chapters are the best introduction on Einstein's special theory available!
I feel very bad in finding here a person of the same country as me showing so much disliking about a book that has been used all around my country (not to say the world) for decades!