Customer Reviews

Physics for Scientists and Engineers, Volume 1, Chapters 1-22, 7th Edition

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

 

 

After taking a year of General Physics with this testbook, I have really come to hate this book. Its not that I hate physics (I'm a physics nerd with multiple majors in Physics, Mathematics and Engineering), it is the fact that this book is so poorly written. The typical examples are less than illuminating in attempting to be conceptual without actually assigning values to the equation.

My professor had to continually use supplemental text and illustrations from other testbooks in order to explain what Serway & Jewett had made confusing. Randall D. Knight's "Physics: A Strategic Approach" has been recommended as a much better text.

Snark of my title aside, this book is really poor for trying to learn physics from, on your own, which with the quality of many teachers today you are most likely to end up doing. If you find a quality teacher willing to take the time to form his or her own explanations for everything in this book, in more understandable terms, then it is a good reference.

But if you are not that fortunate, I suggest you choose another book, even books that are 10-30 years old now only lack one or two things this book has. I've been looking into other explanations of the same material and they are a million times more comprehensible than how the same topics are presented in this book.

I think this book has been rearranged and rewritten, to suck a few more dollars out of college students, a few too many times and no longer has any sensible order to it - if it ever had any. Again, it comes down to this: I can see this book being useful only as a reference, to be used by a good teacher who can pick and choose chapters, sections, and problems to be read and discussed in a DIFFERENT order than they are presented in the book, and also to explain the concepts in English rather than muddled jargon. I was not impressed by the authors' thick Physics accent.

Finally, the single biggest personal complaint I have with the book is the EXTREME liberties taken with shrugging off analytical thinking in physical problems. It only encourages students to stop thinking and just memorize, which should be a punishable crime. The book lightly whisks by methods of analytical thinking in a brief free body diagrams discussion, which would probably have been left out by the authors if it was not so ubiquitous in physics textbooks that it would have been notable missed and criticized (rightfully so) without it. I have many fellow students who think they are excellent at physics, but they're really just impressed that they understood some of the things in this book - which should are actually extremely basic physics concepts. And if that wasn't sad enough, they completely lack the analytical skills that a physicist needs; both because their teacher (not the fault of this book, of course) AND this text DISCOURAGE asking questions.

I don't know of a better -single- physics textbook to choose from, since I can't exactly sample the lot (at the prices these things are going for they should come with a private tutor), but it is worth suggesting two sources for help in understanding physics: the Feynman lectures - these are extremely dated and somewhat hard to follow but very helpful in understanding how to deal with the "what ifs." The MIT OCW lectures by Professor Lewin are invaluable.

Doesn't explain the topics very well. It's much too short during explanations, doesn't give a clear understanding of the subject.

I agree with other reviews, the book "Physics for Scientists and Engineers" is a LOUSY book at explaining concepts, not only that but also some fundamental algebra steps are missing (author thinks you already know the algebra steps).

Overral, is a good book, very organize, explains good how to derive the equations and formulas, and their exercises are very nice to work with, but not good at explaining the concepts and mathematical approach.

I'm a student at City College of New York (Mechanical Engineering), I found this book very good if you previously know the chapters before reading this book. So, in order to do that I read the "University Physics by Young and Freedman" ISBN# 0805391797. And believe me the average grade for Physics 207 was a 50 something; and I got a B grade also a friend of mine got an A grade with the hardest professor by reading the "University Physics" first, then the "Physics for Scientists and Engineers".

My remarks is, if you want to learn physics and you are an AVERAGE JOE like me, then read 2 books:

1st) "University Physics" by Young and Freedman ISBN# 0805391797 cost around [... is a bargain] in amazon(just read the concepts and do examples).

2nd) "Physics for Scientists and Engineers" by Serway (read the concepts again, do examples again, use their equations, and DO THEIR EXERCISES).

It's a physics text. But it's a pretty good one. Not much change between this edition and the 8th edition: Section 9.2 has been expanded to sections 9.2 and 9.3 in the 8th edition, and that's about it, besides the customary addition of some new problems. That's it.

I have to jump on that bandwagon.

If I were 50, already a degreed engineer or physicist, and needed a reference, I'm sure this book would be great. But I'm not. I'm trying to learn physics for the first time, and this book isn't teaching me anything.

It's 'sample questions' should be called 'simple questions'. The actual questions that are in it are so off-the-wall, I think you'd have to sit and think for some time even if you've already passed this class. Hell, maybe even if you helped write the book.

Seeing as how I'm an engineering student, I have to take classes that basically teach the same information, only with different emphases. Vectors? Ha! I learned that properly in calc 3. Forces? Statics. EM Radiation? Circuits. Relativity? Stephen Hawking.

And just for the record, I'm a 4.0 student, and the only difficulties I've had are with classes taught out of this book. Yeah, I got an A in the first section from this book, but I had study groups 3 or 4 nights a week, 6 hours at a shot, where one person worked at an aerospace company, and peppered engineers at her workplace questions all the time. And even then, without the curve, I'd have gotten a B, and blown my 4.0. Compare that with a consistant hour-or-so daily studying calc. If you're a physics chair at some school considering this book, PLEASE look elsewhere. I know about the textbook racket, and, well, what can you do? It is what it is. But for the love of god, if you're going to make a whole other crop of college kids buy another textbook, at least make it one they can learn from.

At my college's bookstore the complete book cost 300$ + tax. The first volume around 120. It was 40 dollars on amazon. Your campus bookstore is a monopoly that charges you whatever they like.

I found this book fairly easy to follow. I wish there more detailed solutions for the exercises at the end of each chapter (maybe those are in a teacher's manual). There are several examples in each chapter that are helpful.

Fast shipping. Efficient. Brand new book with original seals just like the seller said. (:

THis book came in perfect untouched condtion. Better than I expected. Quickly too.