Customer Reviews

Mechanics (Dover Books on Physics)

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This classic text on the basics of mechanical engineering is still worthy reading ,even close to sixty years after its first publication.It's a great resourse for developing and securing your understanding of the established principles of mechanical properties in nature.Anyone,who is searching for excellent proto-examples of mechanical engineering ,can still rely on this text to supplement one's grasp of dynamics,statics and kinematics.A total of seventeen chapters presented.Plus corresponding problems with an answer key provided.The only drawback with this text is that it may seem dated.Yet,it's still a reliable study-resource for people concerned with aspects of mechanical technology.

I took a course on vector statics in undergrad, and foolishly I sold my textbook back to the bookstore. I later found myself wanting a refresher and so I purchased this book. It has proven an incredible resource.

The pedagogical approach is highly visual and geometric. A slip through the book will reveal that there is at least one diagram per page, all heavily labeled, and all physical arguments throughout the text are based on the geometric properties of the diagrams. As some have commented, this is kind of archaic (for instance, calling a force going from a point A to a point B as AB), but fantastically approachable. Also fully explored are the classical, graphical methods of solutions, while the the text of course develops the modern algebraic technique.

While packed full of diagrams, the text is also packed full of problems which are the only way to learn a subject like this. Almost the last 100 pages of the book are problems with solutions listed in the back. Plenty of examples and illustrations are given in the text as well, often in the form of simplified and idealized versions of real-world mechanisms.

When I purchased the book, it was $15.95, compared to the $170 you'd spend on a modern textbook in statics and mechanics, and nothing new has happened in mechanics since Newton. I would highly recommend this book to anyone seeking to learn the subject themselves (understanding that they'd need actually do the exercises) on their own time. I'm not a professor, but I feel like I could easily have used this book as an undergraduate in an intro statics class as the main text and still gotten the same information as from my $170 book, assuming the same regime of homework problems.

A definite recommend.

If you have Beer & Johnson's textbooks on either the subject of statics or dynamics you already have a great (and expensive) text. This one is inexpensive with great exercises, and a very affordable self-study text. The one problem with it is that, like many Dover books, it was written decades ago and the language is therefore somewhat archaic and can be harder to read than modern texts. However, the diagrams are excellent and the problems are very good. The answers to the problems are in the back of the book, plus several people on the web have set about publishing detailed solutions to the problems Hartog's book since the problems do tend to be excellent and well thought out. I highly recommend it as a supplement, but I wouldn't recommend it as your main source of learning the subject of engineering mechanics.

Hartog's treatment covers the fundamental aspects of mechanics in an accessible, if slightly old fashioned, way. The textbook covers statics, kinematics and basic dynamics as they are applied to machine elements and basic structures. The simplest topic is the strength of a beam, and the most complex is the gyrocompass.

The textbook is valuable because it is systematic, comprehensive and well-written. The examples are old fashioned (including horse driven carts!) but valid. There is a good mix of geometrical and algebraical treatments of the topics which will be helpful to less-exeprienced students. It probably won't satisfy those with a keen interest in applied mathematics or who insist on the latest technological examples.

Dover have done a fine job producing a clear and robust book at a cheap price. This is a good investement for a practical engineer.

One of the best, buy it for the problem set, if not for the great text.

This mathmatics/physics/engineering book is well written. I don't know engineering and am reading this for practice, so to speak. I plan to read and reread it as time permits. A good price for an excellent engineering book.

This book might be one of the best mechanics book I have ever read. It's an elementary book which explains everything that you overlook while following the text books now a days. Problems are really good and makes you think. Highly recommended you need an elementary book on Mechanics. Name is somewhat confusing as it explains you dynamics subject as well.