John Taylor received his B.A. in math from Cambridge University in 1960 and his Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Berkeley in 1963. He is professor emeritus of physics and Presidential Teaching Scholar at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He is the author of some 40 articles in research journals; a book, Classical Mechanics; and three other textbooks, one of which, An Introduction to Error Analysis, has been translated into eleven foreign languages. He received a Distinguished Service Citation from the American Association of Physics Teachers and was named Colorado Professor of the Year in 1989. His television series Physics for Fun won an Emmy Award in 1990. He retired in 2005 and now lives in Washington, D.C.

"It is a fabulous example of clarity and precision – one of my very favorite physics texts." --Ben Newling, University of New Brunswick "It is immensely readable, a quality that comparable texts lack." --Jonathan Friedman, Amherst College "The book is excellent. The core of a truly superb mechanics course is covered in Taylor’s text." --Robert Pompi, State University of New York, Binghamton

• Preface PART I ESSENTIALS1 Newton’s Laws of Motion 2 Projectiles and Charged Particles 3 Momentum and Angular Momentum 4 Energy 5 Oscillations 6 Calculus of Variations 7 Lagrange’s Equations8 Two-Body Central-Force Problems9 Mechanics in Noninertial Frames10 Rotational Motion of Rigid Bodies 11 Coupled Oscillators and Normal Modes PART II FURTHER TOPICS12 Nonlinear Mechanics and Chaos 13 Hamiltonian Mechanics 14 Collision Theory 15 Special Relativity 16 Continuum Mechanics