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This is a free, online textbook.  According to the author, "This book presents classical mechanics from an unusual perspective. It focuses on understanding motion rather than deriving equations of motion. It weaves recent discoveries in nonlinear dynamics throughout the presentation, rather than presenting them as an afterthought. It uses functional mathematical notation that allows precise understanding of fundamental properties of classical mechanics. It uses computation to constrain notation, to capture and formalize methods, for simulation, and for symbolic analysis. This book is the result of teaching classical mechanics at MIT for the past six years. The contents of our class began with ideas from a class on nonlinear dynamics and solar system dynamics by Wisdom and ideas about how computation can be used to formulate methodology developed in an introductory computer science class by Abelson and Sussman. When we started we expected that using this approach to formulate mechanics would be easy. We quickly learned that many things we thought we understood we did not in fact understand. Our requirement that our mathematical notations be explicit and precise enough that they can be interpreted automatically, as by a computer, is very effective in uncovering puns and flaws in reasoning. The resulting struggle to make the mathematics precise, yet clear and computationally effective, lasted far longer than we anticipated. We learned a great deal about both mechanics and computation by this process. We hope others, especially our competitors, will adopt these methods, which enhance understanding while slowing research."

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