Customer Reviews

Engineering Mechanics: Statics (2nd Edition)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

What I as a student found lacking in this book: 1.) It has many problems, which is a good thing, but this fact is negated by its lack of a publically available solutions manual and numerous and obvious misprints. 2.) Many of the examples gloss over important points to note and I found many vague and cursory. The instructor I had used more detailed material from other textbooks. Many examples also appeared to be used as a substitute for generalized text explainations and diagrams. It also seemed rather vague on the more theroetical aspects of the material. Considering all the other Statics textbooks out there, chances would favor some of them being a lot better than this one. And taking into account the price, I would consider this book a total waste of resources. If you're a mechanical engineering or aerospace student, you'll probably need a better introduction than this if you hope to survive the more advanced courses.

As an engineering student, I found this book very appealing. Its step-by-step presentation of various topics dealing with static structures make it clear and easy to understand for a freshman engineer and can also be used for future quick-reference. Its colorful, crisp diagrams give the student a good opportunity to develop their spatial perception of 3 dimensional objects. Finally, the book's use of calculus is limited and doesn't make the subject intimidating for the first year student.

Book game with excellent quality and thats where the good news ends.

This book is easily one of the worst i've had yet for any subject. Usually in math extensive classes they go through all of the theory and practical applications of the theory. This book explains theory and gives maybe one or two EASY examples by which you can apply to maybe 10% of the problems in the book, the rest you are on your own. Doesn't help that my teacher is not good either. He's a nice guy but hes not a good teacher. Anytime someone asks a question he immediately says that all the problems in the book are the same. The solutions guide is partial doesnt help much if you arent assigned those particular problems.

This is a very conceptual book and subject and not about the 'practice' of the math rather than the 'application' of it.

unfortunately for us students we have to purchase any book which is required by the teacher. Good luck in your course. this stuff isnt easy. Hopefully you will get a teacher that is merciful.

As an introduction, I am an undergraduate Engineering student, and used this text in a 200-level Statics of Solids course. The authors evidently attempted to innovate statics texts by relying on examples and exercises to comprise a bulk of the learning process. However, it seems that they took this theme a bit to far. There is no effective narrative in the text, and numerous vital details are omitted, with students left to their own devices to glean them from the examples. The example solutions skip steps haphazardly and are difficult for even high-achieving students to follow. Worse yet, several standard formulae, which are crucial for a bulk of the exercises, are relegated to an appendix which is rarely mentioned.

The authors note that some basic calculus is required for the course, which is true. However, their handling of it is one of the text's (many) low points. Descriptions of formulae and their purpose are lacking at best, and variables are inconsistent even within the same chapter. Overall, using this text was not a pleasant experience, and I would not recommend it to anybody, unless they were looking for a book of exercises. Even in that category, there are far better (and less costly) options on the market.

The bundled "Study Guide" authored by Mr. Schiavone, was of little utility. My instructor suggested that we purchase it, and it did provide a serviceable review of basic concepts. It extended review of free body diagrams was limited to the most basic of items and conventions, but could be useful in a course where the instructor neglects this area. Otherwise, the chapter reviews offered minimal, if any, problem-solving support, and thus the use of this supplement as a study guide was minimal. I guess for a student who understood the methods but not representation it could be helpful. Overall, I would not recommend the supplement either.

unfortunately you don't get much choice in whether or not you can use this book . . but the problems are unbelievably difficult even though I have already finished 3 semesters of physics, 4 of calculus, and am only taking this as an elective since my university doesn't have a chemical engineering major. What a waste. . with such a terrible book and poor instruction I don't think I will learn anything and it will probably only set my gpa back more. Avoid if possible!

This is easily one of the worst textbooks I have ever come across. I hate to be honest about it, but statics is a hard subject to learn/teach. The sample problems are far too simple to be useful in figuring out how to do problems at the end of the chapters. My instructor isn't too bad. I feel like I understand most things in lecture, but I get stuck almost immediately when I sit down to do problems from this book. I feel the chapters do not present enough information to do the problems at the end of the chapters. I dislike this book. I strongly recommend you not buy this book. There is also no student's solutions manual for it. The book itself is very unhelpful. It is also way too expensive and really isn't worth the money. I think the least they could have done was come up with a student's solutions manual to help students understand the steps when they get stuck on a problem. I guess the publishers just don't care enough.

The main advantage of this book are the examples: very well described and with wonderful pictures; but it is my opinion that the ideas and principles of statics are not well explained and the student, after reading this book is quite confused. So I recommend to do not buy this book if you need clear and good explanation of the theory.

I notice many reviews complaining that this text doesn't have enough information to help you through the many many problems that it contains. While I agree with this statement, this book works on a completely new level, perhaps to the authors intention. First off, it's Statics, so the entire course will be about solving problems engineers often find themselves. This isn't so much a book cluttered with a thousand pages of mostly useless information, it tells you what you need to get started and then expects you to solve the problems logically.

My advise to anyone purchasing this book, read the chapters before the classes, they are short and won't take much time. The instructor I had using this book used the lecture time to work out in class assignments via the problems after each section, and then assigned homework to reaffirm what we have learned. The book works better as a workbook than a textbook, it expects that by this point you have taken enough Calculus, Physics, and Chemistry to understand what they're talking about.

I agree with the earlier comments regarding the necessity to have to dig through the book to find the answers and rarely coming up with them. The examples are way too simplified to help with the homework unless you have a friend or relative or teacher who can explain the steps (I was not so lucky). This book is more frustrating than challenging and its only saving grace would be a student solutions manual. If forced to use this book, I would take a vector algebra course and make sure you got an A in physics first.

You do learn a lot from this book. I just think the authors didn't spend too much time. There are some typos in the book and some inconsistencies in the problems given in the book. Overall, I'm glad I used this book because it was supercheap and it had great content embedded within it which is why I gave this book 5 stars.