Learn Classical Mechanics: Prerequisites for Goldstein's Book

[Winzer]

I used Marion & Thornton's Classical Dynamics of Particles and Systems for my upper division mechanics course and liked it. I want to self study Goldstein's Classical Mechanics. Are there any books that I should read before going Goldstein?

 

[will.c]

Nope! If you were comfortable with M&T, I can't think of anything in Goldstein that you shouldn't be ready for.

 

[malawi_glenn]

Much of material in Goldstein is already covered in M&T. Maybe start with the chapter about special relativity in Goldstein, and the one with Lagrangian, do get to know the notation, then start with Hamilton formalism of Mechanics then you are on the train.

At my university we first start with mechanics and analytical mechanics with M&T then at advanced Analytical Mechanics we do second half of Goldstein.