John R. Taylor
University of Colorado

"Excellent"

"Superb"

"Immensely readable"

"Accessible"

"A superb text.  The clarity and readability of the book is so much better than anything else on the market, that I confidently predict this book will soon be the most widely used book on the subject in all American universities, and probably  Canadian and European universities also. I judge it to be at least ten times better, maybe more, than the other two popular classical mechanics books on the market right now, the book by Fowles, which students say is too terse to understand, and the book by Marion and Thornton, which students say is so wordy and lengthy that they feel quickly lost." --American Journal of Physics,  April 2004

"The book is excellent.  The core of a truly superb mechanics course is covered in Taylor's text.  I, personally, want this book now."
--Robert Pompi, State University of New York, Binghamton

"Taylor's book is unique among classical mechanics texts.  It comprehensively covers the field at the Sophomore/Junior level.  At the same time, it is immensely readable, a quality that comparable texts lack." --Jonathan Friedman, Amherst College

"Many of my students thought that Taylor's Classical Mechanics was the clearest textbook that they had ever used." --Joel Fajans, University of California, Berkeley

"Taylor's Classical Mechanics is an excellent compromise between Marion, which contains too much material explained in too much detail for my tastes, and Fowles, which is much too terse.  It is accessible for strong second-semester sophomores and is probably about right for first-semester juniors.  The computer exercises in the end-of-chapter problems are particularly welcome..."  --Alma C. Zook, Pomona College

John Taylor has brought to his new book, Classical Mechanics, all of the clarity and insight that made his Introduction to Error Analysis a best-selling text.  Classical Mechanics is intended for students who have studied some mechanics in an introductory physics course, such as “freshman physics."  With unusual clarity, the book covers most of the topics normally found in books at this level, including conservation laws, oscillations, Lagrangian mechanics, two-body problems, non-inertial frames, rigid bodies, normal modes, chaos theory, Hamiltonian mechanics, and continuum mechanics.  A particular highlight is the chapter on chaos, which focuses on a few simple systems, to give a truly comprehensible introduction to the concepts that we hear so much about.  At the end of each chapter is a large selection of interesting problems for the student, 744 in all, classified by topic and approximate difficulty, and ranging for simple exercises to challenging computer projects.

Already in its Second Printing, Taylor's Classical Mechanics is a thorough and very readable introduction to a subject that is four hundred years old but as exciting today as ever.  He manages to convey that excitement as well as deep understanding and insight.

For Adopting Professors, a detailed Instructors Manual is also available.

About the Author:
Professor John Taylor is the author of three best-selling textbooks, including Introduction to Error Analysis and Modern Physics.  He is Professor of Physics and Presidential Teaching Scholar at the University of Colorado in Boulder, where he has won numerous teaching awards, served as Associate Editor of the American Journal of Physics, and received an Emmy Award for his television series called "Physics 4 Fun."  Taylor is shown here as "Mr. Wizard" on his bed nails.