Mechanics. by OSGOOD, William Fogg (1864-1943) - 1949

New York:: Macmillan, 1949., 1949. 8vo. xv, [1], 495, [1] pp. 157 figs., index. Brown gilt-stamped cloth. Ownership label of Richard A. Weiss. Near fine. Osgood, a mathematical physicist, was "noted for his table of integrals and his book on Newtonian Potential Theory." (Walsh, p. 3-4). "He published a text on Mechanics in 1937, the outgrowth of a course he had frequently given, and containing a number of novel problems from his own experience." (op. cit., p.9) Originally issued in 1937, this was an important, practical and thorough treatment of the mechanical sciences. The 16 chapters contain: Statics of a particle; Statics of a rigid body; Motion of a particle; Dynamics of a rigid body; Kinematics in two dimensions; Rotation; Work & energy; Impact; Relative motion and moving axes; Lagrange's equations and virtual velocities; Hamilton's canonical equations; D'Alembert's principle; Hamilton's principle and the principle of least action; Contact transformations; Solution of Hamilton's equations. The Appendix deals with vector analysis, differential equation, characteristics of Jacobi's equation, rational mechanics. Osgood was Perkins professor of mathematics Emeritus at Harvard University. Joseph L. Walsh, William Fogg Osgood 1864-1943, a biographical memoir, WDC: National Academy of Sciences, vol. 81, 2002.