Supplemental book for Landau (mechanics)

[planethunter]

Hello all, I know this might be a redundant question. I started my graduate mechanics course tonight and we will be using Landau's book. What does everyone recommend as a good supplemental book to Landau in order to understand the concepts better? One that has I would say more elaborate examples and is not as brief as Landau.

Thanks!

 

[Lavabug]

Hi, my analytical mech course also follows Landau + Goldstein's texts. Try Calkin's "Lagrangian & Hamiltonian Mechanics" explains theory a lot better IMO and has plenty of examples (nothing on rigid bodies like in Landau's though).

Morin's "Intro to classical mechanics" has pretty thorough chapters on lagrangian mechanics and rigid body motion with a lot of solved problems, worth checking out too.

 

[deluks917]

I like Arnold "Mathematcal Method of Classical Mechanics" but its pretty terse as well. However I found arnold much more understandable then landau. Goldstein might be a good choice for you.

 

[planethunter]

Ok, thanks for the recommendations. I am considering going with either Morin or Goldstein. All the Morin reviews on Amazon are great, and Goldstein is a standard text on the subject. I am leaning towards Morin at this point.

 

[Lavabug]

Just a word of warning on Morin: its mostly Newtonian mechanics (some SR and GR) and its huge, I think its overkill/unnecessary for a pure analytical mechanics course, not to mention it doesn't have anything on Hamiltonian theory. Might want to try skimming through the chapters you're interested in at a local library before buying it.