Customer Reviews

Physics for Scientists and Engineers (3rd Edition)

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I used this book for my highschool AP Physics class in 2001-2002. I just finished the Fall 2005 school semester as a mechanical engineering major, and I have to say that this is by far the most worn-out book I own. I still occasionally pull it out. I own three other textbooks in physics at this level, and I've seen many others; I think this is the most well-written book I've seen for this material. If your instructor doesn't require this book, and if you can find a cheap used copy, I'd recommend getting this to supplement your studies. The pictures and diagrams are great. The text is clear. The formulas are easy to follow. Yes, the problems are rough, but they force you to have a good foundation in calculus, which is absolutely necessary in later courses. Most physics books have similar problems anyway. This isn't the book to get if you need help in math, which is the #1 reason for physics difficulties these days.

Like the other reviewer from UCB, I had to use Giancoli for two semesters of physics, and this book did not help me one bit. All it did was make me feel completely helpless. The explanations of most concepts are pretty clear and concise. The problem is when you get to the problems.

Most of the practice problems at the end of the chapters are much harder than the level at which the actual text covers the physics. As another reviewer said, this book may be good if you've taken a rigorous Honors Physics or AP Physics class in high school, but not everyone has. If your high school only offered a regular college-prep physics class (non-calculus based at that), you will suffer from all the knowledge that it is assumed you can automatically derive or figure out (as if it were common sense) on your own.

I highly regret not looking for other, better, physics textbooks at the time I took my introductory physics classes. I urge anyone who doesn't feel like they already have a good solid background in calculus-based physics, and is assigned this book, to go and find one that explains things in a more in-depth way. Physics is all about the problems, if you can't do the problems then you're screwed in the class. This book does not help you figure out how to solve problems.

Physics without vectors and calculus (and hence, vector calculus) is a nightmare.

Relying on special cases where symmetry allows you only to consider convenient angles and where interesting little tools like Stokes' theorem allow you to resolve Maxwell's equations into dot products perhaps may be convenient for the student only seeking to cop out of any real calculation, but is a nightmare for the student actually trying to learn the material.

In the sections on electromagnetism, Giancoli considers only special cases where he first tells you, for instance, how to find the E field of a ring on a plane, and then, using that knowledge, how to find the field of a cylinder and very slightly more complicated objects. It is true that he states important formulas, like the Biot-Savart law, in their correct, vector calculus form, but then he goes on to treat the student as if he had never seen vectors before and has only a rudimentary knowledge of integration, and thus must be pampered so that he's only dealing with situations of very high symmetry where a lot of things cancel out.

It is true that the good physicist reduces his problems to the most simple form possible, but he does so with the knowledge of how difficult the calculation can be -- knowing the general form of being able to calculate the E field for ANY charge distribution, for instance, but then being able to draw from his own knowledge of symmetry and/or ingenuity to reduce a difficult problem to an easy one. A student who only integrates over sphere his whole life will be unprepared for any real-world theoretical applications -- for he is a specialist in spheres only!

With the equations being over-simplified, Giancoli is able to cover a lot more material than an E&M class that concentrates on how to do the equations in their most general form, thus packing in a year or more of material into less than a semester. This confuses the bright student, leaving her wondering how all the ideas and equations he states and half-derives have any connection with one another --- while in a class where the treatment of the material was more thorough, she would be taught the most general form from the outset.

If you are an instructor looking to assign this book, don't let yourself be blinded by its seemingly easy mathematics. It, in fact, is harder to learn from Giancoli than it is from a book that does a more thorough treatment, and I guarantee your students will forget everything they did in your class by the next semester. I, in fact, highly recommend a different introductory book that does an excellent job -- a book called "University Physics" by Reese.

I used an earlier version of this book when at UC Berkeley a few years ago. It was required for two of my classes and for the third, another book was required, but I always referred back to this one. In fact, I continued to refer to this book after graduating and working as a geophysicist at the USGS. The older version was very easy to follow with a list of useful equations right in the beginning. It did require a fairly good understanding of very basic physics which should come from a high school course. Perhaps the exercises are difficult, but that is only relevant when considering whether your instructor or TA is good or not.

I am now in graduate school and wishing I had not decided to sell this book a couple of years ago and will certainly purchase it again.

This is a good book, but I hate it. I am in my second semester of physics at a Cal State school and have used this book for both mechanics, and now electricity and magnetism.

This book excels at forcing the student to develop problem solving skills. As others have pointed out: there is little theory. Each chapter starts with, maybe, a few pages of the basic theory (these sections can be quite interesting) and then immediately gets into the equations.

I love the conceptual side of physics, having read about the subject since I was a kid. But there is nothing interesting about calculating the electric field around a cylinder, or, better yet, the force of friction on a box sliding down an incline. But hey, we need to learn this stuff. And with this book, you WILL learn it.

In all honesty, I don't think that a physics book for science and engineering students could be written any better. Tedious, thorough, and forces you to learn the material no matter how dry it is. Thank God I'm not a physics major.

The mechanics part is excellent, but the theory vanishes as you reach the electricity and magnetism part. If you're not a physics major, just want to go through the course as fast as you can, and want to get a good grade, this book might work for you becasue it does lots of problem solving and simple "plug and chugs."

But if you're a physics or math or science major, the book is pretty boring because you already know how to plug in numbers into equations--and that's all the book does!

I thought the mechanics part was pretty good, but the electomagnetic part just had bunch of equations without enough explanation as to what they mean. I got an "A" both semesters but didn't learn anything the second semester. I heard the third semester was pretty easy.

Overall, if you can find a good teacher who covers lots of theory, the book would probably work perfect, but if you want to study on your own, then you won't learn anything.

I've been using this book for years. I really like it a lot. There are many god things about it. It shows how calculus is used to derive formulas (remember less formulas, really) and solve many problems... good examples that are worth noting (so important). The calculus is almost a lack of what you'll see in Calc classes because it's seeing what's going on in a problem and describe it with calculus... mainly using integrals (set up equations with infinitesimals and taking the integral to solve for what you need). It'd be nice to find a good book on this, but anyway, I took advantage of getting the information from instructors who could explain it more thoroughly. If you follow the calc stuff in the book carefully you should get it, but be aware that you can integrate with respect to one of the other variables (like limits of integration with arc length s vice angle theta). Overall, I feel it could explain the calculus even more... then it would be very complete!

I think this book is very well written, clearly presented, and has pretty much all the classic examples and problems. I think it needs to clear up some modern physics stuff, though. I felt a little lost and needed to search other books on that stuff. BTW, it appears there is a new 2007 edition coming out with "Modern Physics" in the title... so that might be the one to get.

Anyhow, I love how this one has been around a while and it's a great reference for Univ Phys material. There are answer key/solution documents going around everywhere, but it would have been nice to see one in pdf format (the word one substitutes fonts and isn't in "pretty print" math format... a good version should be somewhere on the web... else I'm going to make one). Overall, I give this book a 4.75. The student solutions manual might be worth checking out (I didn't go that way). Thanks and best of luck.

I used this book in my four-quarter introductory physics sequence in college. This book does exactly what it's meant to do: give the reader an introduction to the concepts of physics. The book is more qualitative than quantitative, and uses only basic calculus that the student should be learning at the same time they are taking an introductory phsyics course. The book is very colloqual, and is a good read.

Some reviews complain that the book isn't rigorous enough, and glosses over material. They forget that this book is only meant to be an introduction to the ideas and basics of physics. Mathematical rigor should wait for upper division courses.

Other reviews claim the book assumes too much of the student. I disagree. The book rarely goes beyond basic calculus. Some ideas may be unintuitive, but you just need to wrap your mind around them. Some of the problems are definitely tricky, but they help develop problem solving skills.

Overall the book is a great reference on the concepts of phsyics. I still refer to it when I forget why a certain thing works a certain way.

I could write probably pages about this book but I want to keep it short. If you want to learn physics (at college and university level), then go no further. This is THE BOOK. I had used it in class before and I still keep it as a reference. It is easy to read and very well organized. I highly recommend this book.

I have had to use this textbook for two straight years, and my opinion of Giancoli's textbook still hasn't changed: it is just plain awful.

While most math and science books will take the time to logically explain how to solve problems, this book skips over many steps. In some aspects, it is almost illogical because the authors assume so much.

Also, the book just doesn't give an adequate discussion of most physical concepts. In many cases, a huge chunk of a major concept will be hidden in an example problem.

For those who have studied physics before, this may be a good book for you. It contains a nice "review" (though inadequate for first year students) of most physics concepts, and contains a nice selection of problems. For all other students, stay away from this one.