The Complete Idiot's Guide to Physics, 2nd Edition [Paperback]

Johnnie T. Dennis (Author), Gary F. Moring (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 2006 | ISBN-10: 1592575315 | ISBN-13: 978-1592575312 | Edition: 2

As an easy, approachable companion to an oft-dreaded subject, this guide is intended for high school and college students who are required to take physics. Offering easy-to-understand instruction, it follows a standard non-calculus-based physics curriculum.
• Clearer, more approachable, solved practice problems plus revised text and figures
• Author and physics teacher Johnnie Dennis won the National Teacher of the Year award, the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honor for high school teachers
• In any given year, research shows that between 420,000 and 2.5 million college students have to take at least one physics course to earn their degree

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Johnnie T. Dennis was selected as the 1970 National Teacher of the Year. There has not been another physics teacher selected for this award since. After a 40-year career, he is now retired.
Gary Moring is the author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Einstein and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Theories of the Universe. He teaches physics and the history and philosophy of science at the University of Phoenix in Northern California. He has received numerous awards for teaching excellence. He has also been a curriculum consultant for the University.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Alpha; 2 edition (August 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592575315
• ISBN-13: 978-1592575312
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #305,318 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Horribly edited, June 15, 2004

By 

Mark Goldman (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Physics (Mass Market Paperback)

I studies physics over 20 years ago in high school, so perhaps I'm rustier than I realized. BUT, what seemed like a helpful book was seriously marred by repeated inconsistencies between the diagrams and the description of the diagrams in the text. "km/hr" in the text are shown as "km/m" in the diagram; symbols are different; in one case, the text clearly meant to refer to "t" [the symbol for time] but the symbol was just dropped ["if it moves for hours" instead of "if it moves for t hours"]. Plus, the author does a good job of setting up the basic explanations, but when giving example problems, he relies on the diagrams to explain the solutions. Since the diagrams are often wrong or inconsistent, it left me a little muddled. I'm not sure how anyone made it through this book. Didn't they have a copy editor?

43 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Typos and forced humor, June 13, 2004

By 

Steve C Dotson "neuroknot" (Lake Junaluska, NC United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Physics (Mass Market Paperback)

At first blush, in the bookstore, this seemed like a great book--but the typos in chapter 2 are infuriating! For example: on page 15 of 2003 edition you travel 15 miles in 3.0 minutes and their answer is 30 miles an hour! Nooooo!!!! Please, this is supposed to help idiots--not be written and proofread by idiots... This is very sloppy publishing and it cannot be tolerated!
A few pages later, the reader is treated to a defintion of acceleration in which a crucial symbol is completely missing.
If not for the typos I would have overlooked the forced enthusiasm in the preamble to the discussion on dimensional analysis, but "All right. Hold on to your hats. Here goes!" begins to annoy one after wasting too much time finding their typos...This is my first Idiots Guide, and it will likely be my last! Shame on the Penguin Group, the parent company!

28 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars This Complete Idiots Guide Needs Work, March 29, 2004

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Physics (Mass Market Paperback)

When I earned an A in Calculus II and decided to take my first Physics course, I realized I needed help learning the concepts. I decided to pick up "the Complete Idiots Guide to Physics." Initially, I thought it was a good purchase because the other Idiot's Guides in the series (Calculus, Programming, etc) were enjoyable and really easy to follow, but not this particular book.

In the beginning, the author would go from one topic to another with very little clarity (I don't know if he continues to do this because I stopped reading after the first four chapters). It was worse than the techings in my assigned Physics textbook for college, but at least my textbook gave numerous sample problems (understanably, the Idiots Guide could never do this).

The quiz questions, entitled "Physics Phun," were not very clear in explaination. I got the majority of those questions incorrect because the questions within the text didn't fully teach enough of the topic for a person to understand. Those questions also lacked some important information to correctly get an answer. The author also failed to explain how the answers to those quiz questions were derived- he only gives the answers in the appendix. How else is a student to learn if there isn't any way to identify what mistakes he/she made while solving problems?

Because of a lack of helpful tutorial matter for beginning physics students to understand the basics, I hoped this book would deliver. Unfortunately, it did not.