Customer Reviews

College Physics, Volume 1 (with PhysicsNOW)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

This book is not at all helpful when trying to learn physics. By the time you get done trying to figure out this book and it's examples, you'll have pulled out all your hair. So my advice to if you're going to use this book is shave your head now to save yourself from the pain later. In all reality, I haven't learned anything from this book. It is very disorganized and the chapter problems are rediculous...what makes it better is the examples in the chapter don't correlated but with only a couple of chapter problems.

I have hated textbooks before, but this one takes the cake. It is quite possibly the worst one that my professor could have chosen. The authors use such a wild mixture of mind-numbingly simple content and obscure, abstract concepts that the picture that they paint is, to put it bluntly, incoherent. They dance around the definition of vocabulary words, always coming close to defining stuff (but never actually coming out and *saying it*), contradict themselves repeatedly, and assume that the reader understands half the concepts before they are even introduced. Perhaps the most irritating thing about this text is the fact that there is *no* glossary to speak of--if the reader doesn't understand the sketchy definition in the chapter or chapter summary, too bad, because that's all you get! Steer clear of this book, if at all possible.

This is the most poorly written text I have ever used. I bought the student solutions manual also which I thought might help me understand the concepts, but to no avail, the solutions manual jumps from Problem #5 to #21 in one chapter?? Forget about the examples on the text they are totally confusing and don't show you how they arrived with the solution. I am no dummy. This book will make you have low self esteem, thats the way I felt. I have a physics tutor who also said this book makes physics even harder to understand. I trully feel sorry for the student that has to buy this book because the school requires it. I had to buy a bootleg CD with the teacher's solutions on it to fully understand this text! We shouldn't have to do that.

This is the worst textbook I have ever read. Their explanations can be confusing and the organization of this book is also horrible. There weren't enough examples in the book to help you learn the concepts. They only had about 1 example per equation that they gave you and the example uses simple situations compared to the problems in the book (or the professor's problems). I wouldn't buy this book because this book did not help much for my physics class; it was just a waste of money.

When I received the book and began reading thru the text I was excited. However, as I began to do the problems at the end of the chapter, I found that the text lacked an in depth explanation on the use of the formulas. Without a good instructor you would be hard pressed to solve most of the problems at the end. I have a GPA of 3.76 at one school and a 4.0 at another so I am a good student. I also aced my math classes including calculus. So my algebra for solving solutions is pretty good. So take it for what it's worth, but I was a little disappointed.

Another reviewer said this book creates low self-esteem and I'd agree. I thought that it was just me, that perhaps I'm really not as intelligent as I felt... at least felt until I started this course.

I'm much more inclined and interested in the biological sciences and mathematical pursuits have always been a bit more of a struggle than some other areas. But the one area in math that I did excel in was the more abstract areas--I have always loved algebra and geometry; I was the weirdo who adored the word problems and will still need a calculator to do the most simple of straight-forward math processes. Therefore, I figured that even though physics would be tough, the fact that it's basically quite within my strengths would help me.

But this book is hideous. Combined with my lack of prior fluency in physics and then adding in a professor who is a wonderful teacher but isn't on my wavelength yet, I'm feeling rather lost and worse than that, pretty shamed. I try to ask for help but can't even figure out where I need the help, and despite hours of studying this book, I can't seem to get past the problems. I'm taking another break from one of the FIRST introductory chapters to search for other aids and online texts that may hopefully be the key in that "Eureka!" moment, because I can't spend much more time floundering before I can't find my ground at all.

I don't know exactly what it is, and I'm more than willing to admit that my initial ignorance is very likely a major factor to my difficulty, but I am naturally a self-educator; if I want to learn something, I will learn it, and have taught myself many advanced topics by reading and practicing myself. But this book just seems to leave me much more puzzled than I was before I started it. I also bought the student solutions companion/manual, and it sucks too. As another reviewer says, it skips over multiple problems (i.e. from showing problem 5 to #20). It doesn't explain anything, just basically repeats itself in the same confusing and seemingly unconnected narrative that it uses in the text.

I will never, ever recommend this book. I think it's sad that I am forced to search for other full texts and use other materials when I already have the full text to this AND the supposed study guide and solutions manual. Honestly the best solution/guide that the supplement has been was in helping me to see that it's not just me and the possibility that in this area I'm simply irreversibly dense--it's the strangely unhelpful way that this book was written.

I find this book very hard to use, concepts are not explained well, examples are poor or not given for some topics.

I read other reviews on this book that were similiar to what I'm about to say. I am an exemplary student with a 3.717 GPA. Furthermore, I am majoring in Physics. Any professor who intends to use this book for instruction to teach their enthusiastic science students, ought to have his/her head examined by a professional. The book is wildly presumptious about topics concerning the relations between the subject matter and knowledge and experience of the student. It assumes a foreknowledge of the subject matter by the student that the student couldn't possibly be equipped to handle yet. It lacks the gracefulness and flow that is so despertately needed when moving from one subject to another. It doesn't have a glossary of terms nor even so much as a list of commonly used physics formulas. Looks like I'll be using YouTube alot in order to learn what this book cost me $161.00 to learn. Very disappointing. Someone dropped the ball on this one for sure.

This book is useless. If there were a rating less than one, that's what I would give it to be honest.
It doesn't explain concepts well enough, and while it gives the formulas you need, that's about as helpful as it gets. It doesn't adequately explain how to utilize the information given in a problem and the necessary formulas to solve the problems. The problems at the end of the chapter are also ten times more abstract and difficult than the in text problems. The book doesn't slowly edge you into being able to solve these harder problems, they start with a insanely easy problem, and that's as far as you go, you're left hanging. Even after hours of reading the chapter, trying to understand the formulas, and attempting the problems, I could never made any progress with this book. I would consider myself a good, hardworking student, but this book along with a horribly inadequate professor have made it impossible for me to enjoy or even LEARN any physics.
If you're stuck in a position like me where you have no choice but to use this book, I STRONGLY urge you to get a quality, supplementary physics textbook so you can actually learn physics.

I had no choice but to purchase this book since it was for school. That being said, I like this book. Each chapter buils on the previous one so everything is connected. For every area there are worked problems which shows you how to approach and figure out the problems.