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THE NEW MECHANICS
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more important, in teaching elementary mechanics to their scholars, than to inform them that this mechanics has had its day, that a new mechanics where the notions of mass and of time have a wholly different value replaces it; they will look down upon this lapsed mechanics that the programs force them to teach and will make their scholars feel the contempt they have for it. Yet I believe that this disdained classic mechanics will be as necessary as now and that whoever does not know it thoroughly cannot understand the new mechanics.
Henri Poincaré.
