The Principles of Canonical Mechanics

Abstract

Canonical mechanics is a central part of general mechanics, where one goes beyond the somewhat narrow framework of Newtonian mechanics with position coordinates in the three-dimensional space, towards a more general formulation of mechanical systems belonging to a much larger class. This is the first step of abstraction, leaving behind ballistics, satellite orbits, inclined planes, and pendulumclocks; it leads to a new kind of description that turns out to be useful in areas of physics far beyond mechanics.