Looking for good books explaining Lagrangian and Hamiltonian Mechanics

[mathisrad]

TL;DR Summary: Need some sources for Lagrangian and Hamilton Mechanics.

I was looking through some of my physics books, and in one chapter they mentioned Hamiltonian and Lagrangian Mechanics, I thought it seemed pretty useful and looked into it some more. I noticed that these mechanics were present in 2 quantum mechanics books, and quantum mechanics being my dream field of work, thought I should learn more about these. However, I know Hamiltonian mechanics is like expressing the energy of a particle as a function of its momentum and position (or something like that, But I'm still really confused about Lagrangian Mechanics. Does anybody know any good books that explain this topic particularly (see what I did there) well

 

[Frabjous]

Most people see it in intermediate mechanics. Marion is a common text.
I would also recommend Greenwood Classical Dynamics.

 

[kuruman]

Does anybody know any good books that explain this topic particularly (see what I did there) well

I taught Classical Mechanics using Marion & Thornton and Taylor. Based on my students' comments, Taylor is by far the more student-friendly of the two.

 

[weirdoguy]

I read both volumes of Taylor and I think it's excellent.

 

[mathisrad]

I taught Classical Mechanics using Marion & Thornton and Taylor. Based on my students' comments, Taylor is by far the more student-friendly of the two.

Thank you, would you consider these easy to learn on your own?

 

[kuruman]

I would choose Taylor. If you are motivated, have a good calculus foundation that includes solving ordinary differential equations and ask a lot of questions here or elsewhere, yes you can learn on your own.

 

[Philip Koeck]

If you can read German: https://static.uni-graz.at/fileadmin/_Persoenliche_Webseite/mitter_heinrich/Dokumente/Mechanik.pdf.

 

[MidgetDwarf]

I think Taylor is the easiest. This is comming from a person with a math background, and not physics.

Another book I liked was Simon.

 

[mad mathematician]

In my Analytical Mechanics course we used Hand and Finch book, we were given HW from some of the exercises from this textbook.

 

[Muu9]

Here are some beginner friendly videos:

 

[mathisrad]

Thank you so much