Practical Mechanics

Abstract

THIS book is one of a series of manuals now being published by Messrs. Cassell and Co., intended for the use of technical students, and claims, to quote the preface, “to put before non-mathematical readers a method of studying mechanics,” which, if carefully followed, will supply “a mental training of a kind not inferior to that the belief in which retains in our schools the study of ancient classics and Euclid.” A principal feature of the method consists in “proving” the various formulæ of mechanics by quantitative experiments. Of these many are described in the book, several of which, such as those relating to torsion and other stresses, &c., are carried on in many physical laboratories, and belong rather to physics than to mechanics. Another feature of the method more novel than the last is the gathering together of a few of the definitions and elementary theorems of mechanics, such as the parallelogram of forces, in a chapter at the end of the book called a glossary. Even then no formal proofs are given, probably because they are unnecessary, since on p. 2 we are told that the reader “cannot know the parallelogram of forces till he has proved the truth of the law half a dozen times experimentally with his own hands”.

Practical Mechanics.

By John Perry, M.E. (London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, 1883.)