Item Successfully Added to Cart
An error was encountered while trying to add the item to the cart. Please try again.
Please make all selections above before adding to cart
The following link can be shared to navigate to this page. You can select the link to copy or click the 'Copy To Clipboard' button below.
Copy To Clipboard
Successfully Copied!
Classical Mechanics with Calculus of Variations and Optimal Control: An Intuitive Introduction

Mark Levi Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA
Available Formats:
Softcover ISBN: 978-0-8218-9138-4
Product Code: STML/69
List Price: $45.00 Individual Price:$36.00
Sale Price: $29.25 Electronic ISBN: 978-1-4704-1444-3 Product Code: STML/69.E List Price:$42.00
Individual Price: $33.60 Sale Price:$27.30
Bundle Print and Electronic Formats and Save!
This product is available for purchase as a bundle. Purchasing as a bundle enables you to save on the electronic version.
List Price: $67.50 Sale Price:$43.88
Click above image for expanded view
Classical Mechanics with Calculus of Variations and Optimal Control: An Intuitive Introduction
Mark Levi Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA
Available Formats:
 Softcover ISBN: 978-0-8218-9138-4 Product Code: STML/69
 List Price: $45.00 Individual Price:$36.00 Sale Price: $29.25  Electronic ISBN: 978-1-4704-1444-3 Product Code: STML/69.E  List Price:$42.00 Individual Price: $33.60 Sale Price:$27.30
Bundle Print and Electronic Formats and Save!
This product is available for purchase as a bundle. Purchasing as a bundle enables you to save on the electronic version.
 List Price: $67.50 Sale Price:$43.88
• Book Details

Student Mathematical Library
Volume: 692014; 299 pp
MSC: Primary 34; 37; 49; 70; 00;

It is hard to imagine a more original and insightful approach to classical mechanics. Most physicists would regard this as a well-worn and settled subject. But Mark Levi's treatment sparkles with freshness in the many examples he treats and his unexpected analogies, as well as the new approach he brings to the principles. This is inspired pedagogy at the highest level.

Michael Berry, Bristol University, UK

How do you write a textbook on classical mechanics that is fun to learn from? Mark Levi shows us the way with his new book: “Classical Mechanics with Calculus of Variations and Optimal Control: An Intuitive Introduction.” The combination of his unique point of view with his physical and geometrical insights and numerous instructive examples, figures and problem sets make it a pleasure to work through.

Paul Rabinowitz, University of Wisconsin

This is a refreshingly low key, down-to-earth account of the basic ideas in Euler-Lagrange and Hamilton-Jacobi theory and of the basic mathematical tools that relate these two theories. By emphasizing the ideas involved and relegating to the margins complicated computations and messy formulas, he has written a textbook on an ostensibly graduate level subject that second and third year undergraduates will find tremendously inspiring.

Victor Guillemin, MIT

This is an intuitively motivated presentation of many topics in classical mechanics and related areas of control theory and calculus of variations. All topics throughout the book are treated with zero tolerance for unrevealing definitions and for proofs which leave the reader in the dark.

Some areas of particular interest are: an extremely short derivation of the ellipticity of planetary orbits; a statement and an explanation of the “tennis racket paradox”; a heuristic explanation (and a rigorous treatment) of the gyroscopic effect; a revealing equivalence between the dynamics of a particle and statics of a spring; a short geometrical explanation of Pontryagin's Maximum Principle, and more.

In the last chapter, aimed at more advanced readers, the Hamiltonian and the momentum are compared to forces in a certain static problem. This gives a palpable physical meaning to some seemingly abstract concepts and theorems.

With minimal prerequisites consisting of basic calculus and basic undergraduate physics, this book is suitable for courses from an undergraduate to a beginning graduate level, and for a mixed audience of mathematics, physics and engineering students. Much of the enjoyment of the subject lies in solving almost 200 problems in this book.

This book is published in cooperation with Mathematics Advanced Study Semesters.
Readership

Undergraduate and graduate students interested in classical mechanics and ordinary differential equations.

• Table of Contents

• Chapters
• Chapter 1. One degree of freedom
• Chapter 2. More degrees of freedom
• Chapter 3. Rigid body motion
• Chapter 4. Variational principles of mechanics
• Chapter 5. Classical problems of calculus of variations
• Chapter 6. The conditions of Legendre and Jacobi for a minimum
• Chapter 7. Optimal control
• Chapter 8. Heuristic foundations of Hamiltonian mechanics
• Additional Material

• Reviews

• This book can be recommended to students and also to everyone involved in preparing an introductory course in advanced classical mechanics, due to the well-selected material and, even more so, the clear presentation.

Zentralblatt Math
• One of the most valuable aspects of the book — unfortunately rare among textbooks — is that we see an author in command of his subject who shares not just the bare facts but how he thinks about them and how all the pieces fit together.

MAA
• Request Exam/Desk Copy
• Request Review Copy
• Get Permissions
Volume: 692014; 299 pp
MSC: Primary 34; 37; 49; 70; 00;

It is hard to imagine a more original and insightful approach to classical mechanics. Most physicists would regard this as a well-worn and settled subject. But Mark Levi's treatment sparkles with freshness in the many examples he treats and his unexpected analogies, as well as the new approach he brings to the principles. This is inspired pedagogy at the highest level.

Michael Berry, Bristol University, UK

How do you write a textbook on classical mechanics that is fun to learn from? Mark Levi shows us the way with his new book: “Classical Mechanics with Calculus of Variations and Optimal Control: An Intuitive Introduction.” The combination of his unique point of view with his physical and geometrical insights and numerous instructive examples, figures and problem sets make it a pleasure to work through.

Paul Rabinowitz, University of Wisconsin

This is a refreshingly low key, down-to-earth account of the basic ideas in Euler-Lagrange and Hamilton-Jacobi theory and of the basic mathematical tools that relate these two theories. By emphasizing the ideas involved and relegating to the margins complicated computations and messy formulas, he has written a textbook on an ostensibly graduate level subject that second and third year undergraduates will find tremendously inspiring.

Victor Guillemin, MIT

This is an intuitively motivated presentation of many topics in classical mechanics and related areas of control theory and calculus of variations. All topics throughout the book are treated with zero tolerance for unrevealing definitions and for proofs which leave the reader in the dark.

Some areas of particular interest are: an extremely short derivation of the ellipticity of planetary orbits; a statement and an explanation of the “tennis racket paradox”; a heuristic explanation (and a rigorous treatment) of the gyroscopic effect; a revealing equivalence between the dynamics of a particle and statics of a spring; a short geometrical explanation of Pontryagin's Maximum Principle, and more.

In the last chapter, aimed at more advanced readers, the Hamiltonian and the momentum are compared to forces in a certain static problem. This gives a palpable physical meaning to some seemingly abstract concepts and theorems.

With minimal prerequisites consisting of basic calculus and basic undergraduate physics, this book is suitable for courses from an undergraduate to a beginning graduate level, and for a mixed audience of mathematics, physics and engineering students. Much of the enjoyment of the subject lies in solving almost 200 problems in this book.

This book is published in cooperation with Mathematics Advanced Study Semesters.
Readership

Undergraduate and graduate students interested in classical mechanics and ordinary differential equations.

• Chapters
• Chapter 1. One degree of freedom
• Chapter 2. More degrees of freedom
• Chapter 3. Rigid body motion
• Chapter 4. Variational principles of mechanics
• Chapter 5. Classical problems of calculus of variations
• Chapter 6. The conditions of Legendre and Jacobi for a minimum
• Chapter 7. Optimal control
• Chapter 8. Heuristic foundations of Hamiltonian mechanics
• This book can be recommended to students and also to everyone involved in preparing an introductory course in advanced classical mechanics, due to the well-selected material and, even more so, the clear presentation.

Zentralblatt Math
• One of the most valuable aspects of the book — unfortunately rare among textbooks — is that we see an author in command of his subject who shares not just the bare facts but how he thinks about them and how all the pieces fit together.

MAA
You may be interested in...
Please select which format for which you are requesting permissions.