Essential Dynamics and Relativity

by Peter J. O'Donnell

Essential Dynamics & Relativity provides students with an introduction to the core aspects of dynamics and special relativity. The author reiterates important ideas and terms throughout and covers concepts that are often missing from other textbooks at this level. He also places each topic within the wider constructs of the theory, without jumping from topic to topic to illustrate a point. The first section of the book focuses on dynamics, discussing the basic aspects of single particle motion and analyzing the motion of multi-particle systems. The book also explains the dynamical behavior of both composite bodies (rigid bodies) and objects in non-inertial frames of reference (rotating reference frames). The second section concentrates on relativity. The author describes the ideas leading to the inception of special relativity. He also formulates fundamental aspects, such as time dilation, length contraction, Lorentz transformations, and the visual aids of Minkowski diagrams, necessary to develop more sophisticated ideas. He then develops the concepts within the context of relativistic mechanics. With many examples throughout and exercises at the end of each chapter, this text makes the often daunting and confusing ideas of dynamics and special relativity accessible to undergraduate students studying the subjects for the first time.

334 pages, Paperback

First published December 26, 2014

Reviews

[Logan · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

I'm not quite sure what the target audience for this book is---on the one hand, the author clearly assumes knowledge of concepts like angular momentum from the first chapter (the stereotypical kinematics one), making this not really valuable as an introductory book; on the other, there isn't nearly enough detail/rigor/content to make this a viable contender (or even supplement) to something like Taylor's Classical Mechanics. I myself have gathered that this works best for someone on the higher end of the spectrum---someone who's had a solid calculus-based introduction to all of the concepts in this book and isn't afraid of the nitty-gritty, but doesn't quite have the mathematical maturity to handle Taylor. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if that target audience is that big.

The important part, though, is that what this book does cover, it covers remarkably well (although it may take a few careful readings to really get the meaning out of it).