Abstract
WRITERS of mathematical text-books on mechanics and of so-called applied mechanics have still much to learn from one another. A too excessive abstract and logical development of the subject by the one tends to make the student lose the sense that it deals with real things; while evident striving for ultra-practicality by the other, and the looseness and inaccuracy of statement often combined with it, irritate him. On the one hand the ordinary student is bored, and on the other puzzled to death. For the difficulties which the industrious student of average ability experiences are more frequently than otherwise due to the fact of his having too logical and clear a mind, or rather perhaps to possessing a mind which requires logical presentment. To a certain extent the three books before us illustrate the above remarks in one direction or the other.
(1) An Introduction to Applied Mechanics.
By E. S. Andrews. Pp. ix + 316. (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1915.) Price 4s. 6d. net.
(2) An Introduction to the Mechanics of Fluids.
By Prof. E. H. Barton. Pp. xiv + 249. (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1915.) Price 6s. net.
(3) Experimental Physics: A Text-book of Mechanics, Heat, Sound, and Light.
By Prof. H. A. Wilson. Pp. viii + 405. (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1915.) Price 10s. net.
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(1) An Introduction to Applied Mechanics (2) An Introduction to the Mechanics of Fluids (3) Experimental Physics: A Text-book of Mechanics, Heat, Sound, and Light . Nature 96, 562–563 (1916). https://doi.org/10.1038/096562a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/096562a0
