About the Author
Jesse David Wall has been teaching physics at the City College of San Francisco for more than a quarter of a century. He wrote the first edition of "Introductory Physics: A Problem-Solving Approach" in 1977 because no text then existed for his favorite course-- a one-semester preparatory course for general college physics. He helped develop this course because of the great diversity of academic backgrounds of City College physics students.
Professor Wall is also well known in the Physics community for his touring magic show "The Physics of Magic and Vice Versa," which he has performed in hundreds of academic institutions and conferences in the United States, Canada and Europe.
Elender Wall, editor and contributor to the second edition, is Jesse David's daughter. She grew up thinking that Physics was "Phun," an impression that was confirmed when she took Paul Hewitt's course in Conceptual Physics at City College of San Francisco. After finishing a Bachelor's degree in Physics at San Francisco State University, she decided to revise her father's book. She expanded the problems sets, revised and edited text and collaborated with her father on two new chapters.
Paul Hewitt, illustrator, is a renowned physics teacher and author. An instructor for many years at the City College of San Francisco, he now shares his teaching schedule between Sand Francisco and the University of Hawaii, Hilo. He is the author of the college text "Conceptual Physics," the leading physics textbook for non-majors for the last quarter century. He is also the author of the text "Conceptual Physics: A High School Program" and is the co-author, with daughter Leslie Hewitt and nephew John Suchocki, of "Conceptual Physical Science," all published by Addison-Wesley-Longman. Before he found his calling as the world's leading missionary of conceptual physics, he worked as a sign painter, where he honed his artistic skills.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Preface: "Introductory Physics: A Problem-Solving Approach" is written for people who have never before studied physics. It is designed as a one semester college course to provide background and problem solving skills to those who would like to take additional courses in physics and related sciences.
The purpose of this book is to take the fear out of physics, to make it possible for people otherwise frightened of the sciences to succeed in subsequent classes. Physics has the reputation of being a difficult, almost impossible, course for many students. Otherwise intelligent people, who bring insight to discussions of art, literature and current affairs, stumble when they get to general college physics. Part of the reason is the wide diversity of their backgrounds. Some students taking general college physics have had a problem-solving physics course for two semesters in high school. Some have had advanced placement physics after that. Sadly, however, the majority of students entering college had had no previous experience in physics.
That is who this book is written for. We have found that people in college without a high school background in physics are on unequal footing with the students who have. A semester of "Introductory Physics" in college, however, can make the difference between success ad failure for these students. For many people, changing their life's goals to go into science would be unthinkable without a way to do well in college physics.
