Analytical Dynamics of Discrete Systems

Book excerpt: This book is to serve as a text for engineering students at the senior or beginning graduate level in a second course in dynamics. It grew out of many years experience in teaching such a course to senior students in mechanical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. While temperamentally disinclined to engage in textbook writing, I nevertheless wrote the present volume for the usual reason-I was unable to find a satisfactory English-language text with the content covered in my inter mediate course in dynamics. Originally, I had intended to fit this text very closely to the content of my dynamics course for seniors. However, it soon became apparent that that course reflects too many of my personal idiosyncracies, and perhaps it also covers too little material to form a suitable basis for a general text. Moreover, as the manuscript grew, so did my interest in certain phases of the subject. As a result, this book contains more material than can be studied in one semester or quarter. My own course covers Chapters 1 to 5 (Chapters 1,2, and 3 lightly) and Chapters 8 to 20 (Chapter 17 lightly).