Landau L.D., Akhiezer A.I., Lifshitz E.M. General Physics (Mechanics & Molecular Physics)

Pergamon Press, 1967. — 372 p.The purpose of this book is to acquaint the reader with the principal phenomena and most important laws of physics. The authors have tried to make the book as compact as possible, including only what is essential and omitting what is of secondary significance. For this reason the discussion nowhere aims at anything approaching completeness.The derivations of the formulae are given only in so far as they may help the reader in understanding the relations between phenomena. Formulae are therefore derived for simple cases wherever possible, on the principle that the systematic derivation of quantitative formulae and equations should rather appear in a textbook of theoretical physics.The reader is assumed to be familiar with algebra and trigonometry and also to understand the fundamentals of the differential calculus and of vector algebra. He is further expected to have an initial knowledge of the main ideas of physics and chemistry. The authors hope that the book will be useful to physics students at universities and technical colleges, and also to physics teachers in schools.This book was originally written in 1937, but has not been published until now, for a variety of reasons. It has now been augmented and rewritten, but the plan and essential content remain unchanged.