Abstract
THE bibliography of this revised text-book is—a first edition in 1856, 304 pages; a second edition in 1865, 363 pages; a third edition in 1871, 428 pages; and the present edition of 407 pages. There are slight alterations in the disposition and amount of the matter in this edition, caps. x. and xi. of the third are put into cap. ix., caps. v. and vi. are contained in cap. v. of the fourth. The position of some of the exercises has been changed. The main features remain unaltered. The revision has had the advantage of Prof. Greenhill's supervision, who has verified (and corrected where necessary) the Examples and has freely introduced the use of Elliptic Functions. There is no need of any commendation for a text-book so well-known. We are, however, very much disposed to think that had Prof. Tait composed the work at a later date than he did, it would have differed somewhat from its present form and have approximated more closely to the Natural Philosophy brought out under the joint editorship of Sir William Thomson and himself. The author justly complains that “several sections in which some novelties appear have been translated almost letter for letter and transferred, without the slightest allusion to their source, to the pages of a German work. Several other books have obviously been similarly treated. It is well that this should be known, as the English authors might otherwise come to be supposed to have adopted these passages simpliciter from the German.”
A Treatise on Dynamics of a Particle, with numerous Examples.
P. G. Tait W. J. Steele. Fourth Edition. (London: Macmillan and Co., 1878.)
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A Treatise on Dynamics of a Particle, with numerous Examples . Nature 19, 94 (1878). https://doi.org/10.1038/019094b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/019094b0