A problem from Whittaker's 1917 Treatise on Analytical Dynamics

[wrobel]

Epoch of thick textbooks in classical mechanics was ended at the edge of 19-20 century. There appear a lot of new branches of physics and classical mech. is no longer considered by physicists as a cutting-edge branch but only as an educational subject. Nevertheless, I believe that we should not completely forget this heritage.

So here is one of the beautiful problems from old textbook [A Treatise on Analytical Dynamics by E. T. Whittaker (1917)]

In principle there is nothing complicated here, but the effect is not evident at least for my personal taste. I think that this problem would be looked nice in problem setss of modern courses.

 

[kuruman]

Very nice problem. However, I think that if it were published in a "modern" textbook, it will have to be chopped into shorter sentences to accommodate the attention span of "modern" students.

 

[wrobel]

I believe you. Мy English is not so good to feel such nuances :)