Abstract
THE manuals published in this series are written specially to meet the requirements of the advanced stage of science subjects, and the present book will be found a very worthy addition. It is not surprising to hear, as the author tells us in the preface, that in preparing this work he was confronted by the syllabus of this department. The range which these 400 odd pages then cover, can on this account be at once gathered; and it can safely be stated that the book includes all that is generally necessary for any school course. The order in which the subject has been treated is first kinematics, in which the geometrical science of motion is dealt with, then statics, and finally kinetics, in which force is treated in its relation to motion. In each part the author feels himself by no means bound up as regards the choice of proofs and definitions; and he places before the reader, in a well-arranged series of paragraphs, all the theorems and problems, illustrating them when necessary with clear figures. The real essence of the subject, that is, the “book-work,” has had special attention devoted to it, and each chapter contains a special number of problems to be deduced directly from it. Stress has been laid, too, on the importance of solving problems from first principles, and not from a direct substitution in formulæ. Formulæ can easily slip the memory, if not totally, then partially, and it is for this reason that numerous methods and samples of solution have been given.
Theoretical Mechanics.—Solids.
By Arthur Thornton Longmans' Advanced Science Manuals. (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1894.)
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[Book Reviews]. Nature 50, 593 (1894). https://doi.org/10.1038/050593b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/050593b0