Mécanique Appliquée

Abstract

THERE must surely be few text-books about which such conflicting opinions are held as this well-known book on applied mechanics by Prof. John Perry. One of these opinions, favourable to the book, is held by a majority of teachers of engineering science and by almost all engineers. The other, which is equally unfavourable, is confined to a minority of teachers—doubtless the “academic persons” to whom the author so often refers. There must be something fundamental, some conflict of principle, which can produce so wide a difference of opinion between persons equally competent to judge. We are aided in arriving at the nature of this conflict by the fact that engineers outside the colleges are almost universally in its favour; as they are, indeed, of each of the author's text-books relating to engineering subjects. Perhaps a parable may be admitted. We picture two travellers desirous of arriving at the same destination, one of them alert to have all the precise formalities of the journey carefully observed, and the other careless of bylaws, and only careful that he shall arrive at his destination by a road which, while reasonably rapid, shall not absorb his every mental activity until such time as the destination is reached.

Mécanique Appliquée.

Prof. John Perry. Ouvrage traduit sur la NeuviÃme Edition Anglaise par E. Davaux. Avec des additions et un appendice sur la mécanique des corps déformables by E. Cosserat and F. Cosserat. Tome Premier. L'Energie Mécanique. Pp. vii + 398. (Paris: A. Hermann et Fils, 1913.)