title: The Science of Mechanics: A Critical And Historical Exposition Of Its Principles (Cambridge Library Collection - Physical  Sciences)
author:  Ernst Mach 
description: This is the 1893 English translation of the 1888 second German edition of Ernst Mach's historical and philosophical account of mechanics. Discussing the development of statics and dynamics, it was originally written to clarify physical concepts without detailed mathematical discussion, and is best known for its criticism of Newtonian concepts of time and space.
zlib_text: Daniel BesGraduate Texts in PhysicsQuantum Mechanics3rd ed. 2012A Modern and
  Concise Introductory Course10.1007/978-3-642-20556-9_1© Springer-Verlag Berlin
  Heidelberg 2012
  
  # 1\. Introduction
  
  Daniel R. Bes1
  
  (1)
  
  Comision Nacional de Energia Atomica, Universidad Favaloro, Av. General Paz
  1499 1650 Prov. de Buenos Aires, Argentina Solis 453, 1078 C.A.B.A., Argentina
  
  Abstract
  
  The construction of classical physics started at the beginning of the
  seventeenth century. By the end of the nineteenth century, the building
  appeared to have been completed: the mechanics of Galileo Galilei and of Isaac
  Newton, the electromagnetism of Michael Faraday and James Maxwell and the
  thermodynamics of Ludwig Boltzmann and Hermann Helmholtz were by then well
  established, from both the theoretical and the experimental points of view.
  The edifice was truly completed when Albert Einstein developed the special and
  the general theories of relativity, in the early twentieth century.
  
  The construction of classi