Rational Mechanics

The Classic Notre Dame Course

Developed from a classic undergraduate course on the study of the motion of bodies, this volume stresses the history of science as well as relevant physics and mathematics. R. Catesby Taliaferro developed a well-attended and much-revered course during his 20-year tenure at Notre Dame. He left among his papers the unfinished manuscript for this text, which has now been completed and prepared for publication by a group of his former students and colleagues.
Suitable for undergraduates and beginning graduate students of physics and the history of science, this volume begins with an exploration of ancient Greek celestial mechanics and the seventeenth-century scientific revolution incited by Kepler's work. Subsequent chapters examine vector spaces and their applications, elementary differential geometry, particle dynamics, displacement and kinematics, theories of light, and the special theory of relativity.