Dynamics

Abstract

THE main substance of Prof. Tait's present work has, for the past twelve years, been accessible to any one who cared to be at the trouble of consulting the cumbrous volumes of the “Encyclopædia Britannica,” but we are glad that the author has at last been induced to issue his article on “Mechanics” in the form of a compact and handy octavo volume. This will be a useful addition to the library of every teacher who has to lecture to advanced classes, but the very encyclopædic treatment of the subject makes it rather hard to judge how far Prof. Tait's work meets the requirements of students. The author himself says in the preface that “in teaching, I have found it advantageous to supplement the work at each stage by additional examples of the processes given in the text; as well as by references to special books in which particular questions are examined with greater detail.” Considered as a synopsis of the principles of statics, particle and rigid dynamics, hydrodynamics, and even portions of elasticity, the book may safely be recommended either to mathematical students, or to such students of physics or engineering as have undergone the necessary preliminary grounding in higher analytical methods.

Dynamics.

By P. G. Tait Pp. 361. (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1895.)