New foundations for classical mechanics. (Q1296228)

This is the second edition of a textbook in analytical mechanics [for the first edition see the author, New foundations for classical mechanics Fundamental Theories of Physics, 15. Dordrecht etc.: D. Reidel Publishing Company, a member of the Kluwer Academic Publishers Group. XI (1986; Zbl 0612.70001)] at a level approximately the same as \textit{H. Goldstein}'s [Classical mechanics. 2nd ed. World Student Series. Addison-Wesley Series in Physics. Reading, Massachusetts, etc.: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company. XIV (1980; Zbl 0491.70001)] It includes more or less standard materials on the mechanics of particles and rigid bodies. This work is intended to be mostly a physics book, as apposed to a book on mathematical methods in physics. The primary exception -- a big one, and the rationale for a new book on classical mechanics -- is the author's introduction and consistent use of geometric algebra (or Clifford algebra, as it is more commonly known) in place of the usual vector-matrix approach. The author seems to be a proselytizer for the geometric algebra approach: namely, he claims that geometric algebra integrates complex, vector and matrix algebra into a coherent mathematical language which retains the advantages of each but possesses powerful new capabilities. Revisions in this second edition include the addition of a chapter on relativistic mechanics and the deletion of a chapter on the fondations of mechanics. More than one hundred of the book's nearly seven hundred pages are devoted to mathematical preliminaries. In addition, there is a long chapter on ``Operators and transformation'' which establishes a basis for the discussion of motion in rotating systems. The ``new foundations'' of the book's title presumably refer to the author's recasting of mechanics in terms of geometric algebra, and of the modern theory of dynamical systems little is presented. The book is clearly written and contains many detailed examples and a variety of good problems. Nevertheless, in several non-essential areas, there are unclear, misleading, or incorrect statements that range from calling the quaternions the ``largest possible associative division algebra'' to an arguable attribution of the Earth's ice ages to orbital perturbations. Overall, however, this is an attractive book with a distinctive approach to the classical mechanics.