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History of Science and Math Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [classical-mechanics]

For questions about Classical Mechanics - a branch of Physics involving the study of the motion of macroscopic bodies under the influence of Forces

This tag should be used along with tag.

119 questions
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Foucault pendulum historical question

I was wondering if anyone knows if Foucault actually gave a mathematical description of his observations related to the apparent motion of the pendulum. And if he didn't prove it, who described the motion of the pendulum first?
twilight44
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The origin of F=ma

Authors writing about history of physics describe that before the writing of the Principia several scholars were aware that if the orbits of the planets would be circular (which they knew wasn't the case) then Kepler's third law was consistent with…
Cleonis
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First mention of modes of vibration in mechanics

I was wondering when eigenmodes (modes of vibration) were first mentioned in mechanics. Any reference would be appreciated. I expect them to date back to the second half of the 19th century because of the breakthrough in linear algebras, but I'm not…
anderstood
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When does the first vibration meter/tester exist in the earth?

When does the first vibration meter/tester exist in the earth? It was too hard to find the answer in Google in few hours
Victor
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Were there non-Western models of projectile motion before Galileo?

When I search for the history of projectile motion, I mostly find outlines starting with Aristotle and discussing Ibn Sina, Tartaglia, Galileo, Newton, etc. and perhaps with a few more Europeans in the gaps. Ibn Sina wasn't Western, but he was…
Mark Eichenlaub
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What exactly did Lagrange do, historically?

I'm tying to understand, historically, what lead to Lagrangian mechanics (LM). What did Lagrange actually do? In the time (year 1788), when Lagrange published his work (that we nowadays call "Lagrangian mechanics") the term "energy" was not known.…
Foo Bar
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Hellenistic mechanics

In Rene Dugas' History of Mechanics, the author starts off the book with this passage with details with regards to hellenistic mechanics. He comments, and I paraphrase " the author of the apocryphal treatise Problems in Mechanics defines the "power"…
SaitamaSensei
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Looking for a Book Which Discusses the Standards of Rigor in Newton's Principia

About an year ago, I had seen an article somewhere on the internet which discussed Newton's Principia Mathematica and the rigor (or lack thereof) of the arguments presented. I have forgotten who the author was and am unable to find the article…
user2721
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Are similarities in notation between Hamiltonian mechanics and Box-Jenkins time series forecasting accidental?

The 1833 formalism of Hamiltonian mechanics prescribes phase space coordinates (p,q) as momenta. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamiltonian_mechanics The Box-Jenkins method (1970) of time series forecasting uses similar notation (p,q) defined as…
DJohnson
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Did William Rowan Hamilton respond to the assertions by Jacobi?

In his 'Vorlesungen über Dynamik', 1842-1843, Jacobi also discusses the papers by William Rowan Hamilton. Jacobi asserted that Hamilton had inadvertendly introduced a superfluous equation, which of course introduced unnecessary complexity. Is there…
Cleonis
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Motivation of the Hamiltonian formalism

In 1833 Hamilton introduced what today is called the Hamiltonian formalism in classical mechanics. I am wondering what was his motivation. Did he try to solve a specific question?
user65203
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Origin of mechanical work before work energy theorem

I am interested to know when and why was the concept of mechanical work (W=F.s) introduced? What was the motivation behind it/ why was it considered meaningful before the work energy theorem? Thankyou
user194517
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What is the decade of experimentation that start to verify the formulas from mechanics of vibration?

What is the decade of experimentation that start to verify the formulas from classical mechanics of vibration? People unable to "see" or "hear" the vibration of the objects in the late 19 century...
Victor
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Hamilton's derivation for the characteristic function in his essay

In Hamilton's "on a general method in dynamics", he starts with varying the function $U$ and writes the equation: $$\delta U=\sum m(\ddot x\delta x+\ddot y\delta y+\ddot z\delta z)$$ Then he defines $T$ to be: $$T=\frac{1}{2}\sum m (\dot x^2+\dot…
A.S
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History of mechanics

Could anyone please suggest me a good book which explains the history of mechanics clearly in a way that the modern reader can comprehend without knowing a breadth of historical facts? Also a book of similar nature with regards to the development of…
SaitamaSensei
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