9789812709127
Theory of orbital motion.
Tan, Arjun.
World Scientific
2008
281 pages
$28.00
Paperback
QB355
Keppler puzzled over it. So did Einstein. In fact, most of the
greatest theorists had at least a thought or two about orbital motion,
especially in the rise and growth of space science. Tan (physics,
Alabama A&M U.) brings the concepts to the introductory and
intermediate undergraduate levels, working primarily from first
principles and beginning with Kepler's laws of planetary motion and
Newton's law of gravitation. Thus armed, he explains the average
and extremum values of variables, the central force problem, vector
hodographs in planetary motion, planetary motion in Cartesian
coordinates, the planetary problem in complex coordinates, Keplerian
motion in the solar system, and planetary motion in three-dimensional
space. He concludes with analyses of the motion of artificial earth
satellites and the perturbations of satellite orbits, providing a fine
treatment of the ellipse and its properties in an appendix.
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