THIS book continues the series of English translations of the revised and augmented volumes in the Course of Theoretical Physics, which have been appearing in Russian since 1973.The English translations of volumes 2 (Classical Theory of Fields) and 3 (Quantum Mechanics) will shortly both have been published.Unlike those two, the present volume 1 has not required any considerable revision, as is to be expected in such a well- established branch of theoretical physics as mechanics is.Only the final sections, on adiabatic invariants, have been revised by L.P.Pitaevskil and myself.

Preface to the third English edition .

L.D. Landau—a biography

I. THE EQUATIONS OF MOTION

　1. Generalised co-ordinates

　2. The principle of least action

　3. Galileo's relativity principle

　4. The Lagrangian for a free particle

　5. The Lagrangian for a system of particles

II. CONSERVATION LAWS

　6. Energy

　7. Momentum

　8. Centre of mass

　9. Angular momentum

　10. Mechanical similarity

III. INTEGIRATION OF THE EQUATIONS OF MOTION

　11. Motion in one dimension

　12. Determination of the potential energy from the period of oscillation

　13. The reduced mass

　14. Motion in a central field

　15. Kepler's problem

IV. COLLISIONS BETWEEN PARTICLES

　16. Disintegration of particles

　17. Elastic collisions

　18. Scattering

　19. Rutherford's formula

　20. Small-angle scattering

V. SMALL OS ILLATIONS

　21. Free oscillations in one dimension

　22. Forced oscillations

　23. Oscillations of systems with more than one degree of freedom

　24. Vibrations of molecules

　25. Damped oscillations

　26. Forced oscillations under friction

　27. Parametric resonance

　28. Anharmonic oscillations

　29. Resonance in non-linear oscillations

　30. Motion in a rapidly oscillating field

VI. MOTION OF A RIGID BODY

　31. Angular velocity

　32. The inertia tensor

　33. Angular momentum of a rigid body

　34. The equations of motion of a rigid body

　35. Eulerian angles

　36. Euler's equations

　37. The asymmetrical top

　38. Rigid bodies in contact

　39. Motion in a non-inertial frame of reference

VII. THE CANONICAL EQUATIONS

　40. Hamilton's equations

　41. The Routhian

　42. Poisson brackets

　43. The action as a function of the co-ordinates

　44. Maupertuis' principle

　45. Canonical transformations

　46. Liouville's theorem

　47. The Hamilton-Jacobi equation

　48. Separation of the variables

　49. Adiabatic invariants

　50. Canonical variables

　51. Accuracy of conservation of the adiabatic invariant

　52. Conditionally periodic motion

Indx