33 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great book for excellent learning, July 13, 2005
Contrary to what some of the reviewers have said, this book is great for self-study. I know this from experience. It is mostly clear and logical, although there are certain parts that are frustrating because of lack of clarity. There are some examples that are confusing, and, as explained by a previous reviewer, sometimes variables are not explained in new equations.
The best thing about this book is that it has many great, easy to understand examples at varying difficulties. The graphics are excellent and this really helps sometimes. The problem sets at the end of the chapters are good. If you can do the examples and problem sets at the end of the chapters (and I know you can because the author does a wonderful job at explaining the subjects) you will find books on classical mechanics and electromagnetism to be extremely easy.
This book comes with online supplements, but you probably will not use them. They are worthless. Do not waste your time trying to use the online supplements.
UPDATE: I scored 5's (the highest possible score) on my advanced placement physics C exams(both mechanics and electricity and magnetism). I never took a course or had a teacher for this level of physics so my score must have been due to this book!
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
PITIFUL, November 16, 1999
The title of this book should be: "PHYSICS FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE ALREADY SCIENTISTS AND ENGINEERS". This is a good idea gone bad. As others have said, the Chapter Reviews, illustrations, etc are helpful and I guess this is a terrific reference book for those people who already know most of the material. BUT, for a beginning Physics student, it is maddeningly incomplete. There are plenty of examples but very little explanatory text and the examples have a REALLY BAD HABIT of SKIPPING MANY IMPORTANT STEPS. The result is that if your particular problem is not specifically one of the examples, why then, you are most likely OUT OF LUCK! After using this book it would seem that the subject of Physics has gotten so huge with information that an overview course can no longer be covered in the traditional 2 college semesters. At least that is the impression. Why else would there be so little discussion of the IDEAS BEHIND THE PROBLEMS. But, at the very least, in the examples that are covered, could not ALL THE STEPS that are required to do the problem be included? When a beginning student has to attempt to "fill in" an author's blanks, learning becomes tedious and frustrating. I'm speaking not only for myself but for many of my classmates as well. Most of them are bright, energetic science majors who are thoroughly fed-up with using this poorly written texbook.
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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Achieves its goal, June 8, 2007
This book seems to achieve its goal very nicely, namely, to be a general physics textbook. It competes with the usual suspects: Halliday/Resnick, Serway, etc. This seems to be a market where, if the books are too sophisticated, they sure aren't going to be adopted.
The educational system in most countries seem to emulate this recipe of physics with as little mathematics as possible and a "general course" where students are merely introduced to physics at a level only slightly higher than high-school level. This is one of those books. Whether we like it or not, this is how it is even, apparently, in top institutions in the U.S.
That said, I will disclose that I can't stand Halliday/Resnick, and thought that Serway was too much of a marketing stunt. Tipler, on the other hand, seemed quite reasonable. I think this book stands out for: 1) lack of cruft; 2) clear explanations, that rely on math, rather than verbosity; 3) a sensible choice of *relevant* examples; 4) a nice pedagogical resource, whereby the author gives you an example and subsequently does another one ("You try it"), with step-by-step handholding.
Overall, of the books I used, this was more to my taste. I happened to notice that some Physics teachers (for undergraduates) also seemed to like this book more (and, in fact, I had a teacher describe Halliday/Resnick as a "chronic disease", one that our institution could not get rid of, because the book had been around for so long, and we had so many copies at the library - our libraries in Brazil don't typically throw out old editions). Other books I enjoyed were Alonso & Finn, and McKelvey & Grotch (these two out-of-print, unfortunately).
There are many more books out there for the undergraduate that wishes to have a more sophisticated and mathematically sophisticated understanding of Physics. However, it seems these more "mundane" courses are a pervasive practice. And there's nothing you can do about it. And you are not to blame. So, at least choose a nicely crafted learning tool.
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