Herbert Goldstein (1) (1922–2005)

This book is awful.

This author's writing style is verbose and at times maddeningly mathematically obtuse. Many typos in the first edition were corrected in the second edition, however new typos were introduced in the second edition to compensate. Later chapters on Hamiltonians, Canonical Transformations, and Hamilton-Jacobi theory are particularly horrendous. The early chapter on the two-body central force problem is complete, however information here can be obtained in other superior volumes (Landau and Lifshitz, Danby Szebehely, etc.). Superior graduate classical mechanics texts can be found in Tabor, Scheck, and even Arnold. I'm sure there are other better volumes as well.

I once vowed never to open this book again, and nine times out of ten I regretted opening the book when breaking the vow. This will be the first book I burn if I ever need to stay warm if I ever can't pay the utility bill.… (more)