Customer Reviews

Holt Physics

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This was the text book used in my honors physics class. Though it may not go into extremely advanced issues, it does touch on A LOT of material, including basic collisions, fluids, rotational motion, relativity (a bit), and even some quantum mechanics. This book is definitely useful to anyone who wants a better education in basic physics and a start into somewhat beginner's advanced physics.

I'd consider this a typical high school physics text, with the usual positives and negatives. IMHO there are better h.s. texts out there. Having said that, here's what I found:
The presentations and explanations in the text are pretty decent. However, this may not be that important, because many teachers give lectures or handouts, and are well aware of the fact that most students will do whatever they can to avoid reading the text. The main difficulty I ran into using the book was the lack of mid-level difficulty "practice problems". Colleagues in other schools have stated the same. In this text, problems tend to jump from a "basic" level to the "difficult" level. As a result, I put together handouts of mid-level problems for students to practice, so that they could master the material and achieve a level of confidence, before tackling the more difficult problems.
Another complaint I have is that this newer edition does not seem to be much different from the older (and cheaper) one. Sections that had appeared in the Appendix have been switched with sections in the main part of the text and vice versa, end-of-chapter problems were jumbled and renumbered, and a few problems changed. A new cover is given, and parents are then stuck purchasing a new textbook. My advice about whether to purchase the newer or older edition is this: If your teacher assigns reading by page, and HW problems from the book, then you need the newer one; if your teacher gives handouts for problems and assigns reading by topic, -- you can probably get away with the older version.

I am currently using this book at my high school. It is not a good textbook. It's disorganized, and hard to understand. On top of that, it gives examples to teach problems, then gives problems that are nothing like the examples.

I've had this book assigned to me when I was a high school exchange student in Yankeeland. I've grown to like it so much that I wanted to outright buy it when the semester ended and it was time for me to go home. However when they've told me it costs $85 (a used one per se but in a very good condition) I had second thoughts. I've wanted to buy the book ever since hoping that its price will drop to a reasonable level after a few years.

Still, if you're interested in physics, be sure not to miss out on this one. I'd give an arm and leg to see such book being published in my native language (Hungarian). It's not for university students per se, but that's the point: it explains everything in plain English, without some distracting advanced math :P

This is an excellent Physics manual and defines what a good physics textbook should be about. Excellent graphics and well defined explanations. A great resource for teacher and student alike.

Don't even bother with this book in a High School physics setting, it assumes the student has no knowledge of what a parabola is (that's just one example). Overall it's paragraphs and paragraphs of over-explanation.

do not buy it !
it is student edition
I ordered one and they send student edition
it was so interesting that there are 2 photos with both student and teachers book

There's lots of stuff. There's also stuff in here that should be explained a little better. I tried learning from reading this and sometimes I would get confused but that's where a teacher comes in or reading it over and over helped some too.

Good textbook, my highschool uses it.

This was ordered as a replacement book for one my son lost. It is in better condition ,and much easier to read than the ones issued by the school district!

Quite Frankly, this new Holt Phyiscs book, does NOT cover all the content that is involved in the detailed study of Physics. Not only that, but it leaves out some of the most important principles that are in physics. For example, Chapter 5-2, we talk about Energy, it doesn't give the law of conservation of energy, which is one of the most important laws in physics. It also when talking about Newton's laws, doesn't use the ideas that Newton had. There are so many things missing, I could go on forever, I wish I could give this book a negative score, but I can't do so. I'm currently in Physics at my school, and I like to study Physics in my spare time. Serway is a very good author of the college books, that I have, but this one does not cut it for a full understanding of Physics.