Physics for Mathematicians, Mechanics I

Description

From the Preface: The purpose of this book, or possibly series of books, is indicated precisely by the title Physics for Mathematicians. It is only necessary for me to explain what I mean by a mathematician, and what I mean byphysics.By a mathematician I mean some one who has been trained in modern mathematics and been inculcated with its general outlook. ... And by physics I mean -- well, physics, what physicists mean by physics, i.e., the actual study of physical objects ... (rather than the study of symplectic structures on cotangent bundles, for example). In addition to presenting the advanced physics, which mathematicians find so easy, I also want to explore the workings of elementary physics ... which I have always found so hard to fathom.As these remarks probably reveal, basically I have written this work in order to learn the subject myself, in a form that I find comprehensible. And readers familiar with some of my previous books probably realize that this has pretty much been the reason for those works also. ...Perhaps this travelogue of an innocent abroad in a very different field will also turn out to be a book that mathematicians will like.