Customer Reviews

Physics

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I am shocked to see such lousy responses to this book. I have been using this book for two semesters in college and have had nothing but success with it. I have over 15 physics books and the most thorough and complete one is the Ohanian one. The strategy of this book is to teach physics with a calculus approach instead of a simplified version for the weak. Classical physics was developed by Newton, and he developed it using calculus, so this is the way to go if the serious student wants to learn and really understand classical physics. Also, I have encountered very few errors in this book, so if your solution doesn't agree with Ohanian's, it may be due to a mistake on your part.

Alright, there are some clear weaknesses with this book. The major one is that the explanations of problem solving are not very good and the examples are not very much help at all.

Essentially, one needs to read Ohanian first, read another physics text to figure out how to solve the problems, then read Ohanian again to figure out what the other textbook missed.

That is the advantage of Ohanian, though. This is a text that is for physicists and other scientists and engineers who need a _real_ introduction and understanding of physics, not just a superficial one that babies you along. At every stage you're expected to fully understand the material presented.

The chapter problems and exercises are the other strength of Ohanian. Problems are categorized by difficulty from 0 to 3 stars, with 3 stars being the most challenging. The 0-star problems are straightforward while the 3-star problems truly tax the knowledge of even the most superior student and require full understanding of all the material in the chapter (and often preceeding chapters as well). The fact that the solutions in the rear of the book (every other answer only) are frequently completely wrong for the 2- and 3-star problems is a testament to this.

In summary, Ohanian is an excellent choice for an honors or advanced freshman/sophomore course in physics. It is perhaps a little too intense for a standard calculus-based introduction to physics course, or an AP Physics course, however.

This is one of the better textbooks for introductory Physics for science majors. Halliday, Resnick and Walker's emphasizes on problem solvings; Serway's makes great balance between concepts and applications; Giancoli's is more conceptual oriented; Young and Freedman's has a lot of excellent problems and explains concepts very well; Tipler's is quite boring and concise. It's always nice to read a newly published classical physics textbook to see how the same subject is presented differently by the different authors. But since this book emphasizes the practical aspects of physics, it's probably more welcome than the others for a college level cal based introductory physics course. Get the Answer book, very helpful: 039395756X

If you want to learn basic physics including motivations for advanced concepts, this book is the one. If you gonna study physics just to get a good grade and indeed not interested in beauty of physics (in freshmen level), don't buy this book; you can try "Fundamentals of Physics".
If you think the number of examples are not enough in Ohanian's book, bookstores are full of ordinary freshmen physics books icluding solved problems with colorful "drawings" and "pictures". Maybe it is the best to read Ohanian's book "very carefully" and "very detailed" and follow a second book to see more solved examples.

This book is great. It's a little challenging, but it's not because of the book, but the subject.

P.S. A physics book cannot be outdated.

If you are going to watch the MIT 8.01 videos then this is book is a must own. I don't know of any way to learn a science subject without actually doing the homework, especially Physics.

This is a well-written book.

Nobody is taking a class in which it is the assigned textbook anymore, but if you're looking for a reference/refresher book at big discount, or you're teaching hs physics and you'd like a personal supplement to your library for homework and test problems, this book is really good. If you want more pictures and visual representations, Young et al's University Physics is a very nice book.

This is the last physics book I would recommend you buy. I am forced to use it for class, but I would never choose to use it. It doesn't explain concepts well, and the few examples do not help. Also the answers in the back are often incorrect.

It is required for my physics clas