Customer Reviews

Schaum's Outline of Physics for Engineering and Science

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I'm just a regular guy, rather than a physics genius. This book was just another in my huge stack of preparatory books that I'm using to get ready for my ph.d. qualifier.

Yes, this book is a bit too elementary for use on most qualifiers, but Browne has done what nobody else has done, he has taken all of the most important areas of mechanics, e&m, optics, thermo, quantum and relativity and present the material in an easy-to-understand way. The amazing thing though, is that he has managed to make a simple book but still explain the important areas of advanced physics. You won't find a derivation of -- for instance -- the Maxwell Eelectromagnetic wave equation and Poynting Vector, but the equations are in there, and he shows you how to use them.

I can go through my more advanced books and even my simpler guidebooks, and one thing strikes me immediately ... that Browne is in the same class as Griffiths, Speigel and Landau. He has written a book about physics, and he understands physics. The clarity of thought in this book can only come from a seasoned professional with years of experience "behind the pencil." This is not the type of book that is written by a brash young physicist that needs to show how smart he is, but by a grandpa that really does want to make things easier. Amazingly, he even gives a skeletal outline as to how Schrödinger may have come up with his equation, which is nice ... most other books just say it cannot be derived and leave it at that.

Ironically, I had seen this book back in my undergraduate days, and thought little of it. But now that I have enough knowledge to want the simplicity of physics, rather than just a head full of equations, I see the true value of Browne, he UNDERSTANDS, and helps me understand.

Yes, there are a few minor mistakes in the book, but not as many as other reviewers have said. Most of the time, his "error" is either a very obvious typo or a wrinkle to a problem that looks like an error, but is actually correct.

His problems are all interesting, and almost exclusively applied problems. (It wouldn't hurt to have had a few more mathematical type problems, but that's okay.) He even gives amusing personal stories in the problems to keep things interesting.

So now the book is valuable to me because I already have a head full of equations, and I'm already fogged in and can no longer see the forest, just trees. But Browne gives me the aerial view, and I can see how everything fits together again.

I use this book, I live with this book and I'll probably use it for years. I recommend this book. At about $12 you can't go wrong, it's worth many times more.

I taught calculus-based physics to undergraduates, and I recommended this book to my students as a study aid. The solved problems are an excellent tool for learning. Very useful book.

This book contains interesting problems and the author seems to know his Physics. However, the book appears to not have been proof read, or perhaps the author is expecting students to find the errors and perhaps inform him of them. The problem with this is that most students are using a book of this sort to help them understand physics. But when the answers cannot be relied upon to be correct, the student must know the subject as well as the instructor to easily catch them. Hours of confusion can result for the beginner. Some of the errors are unforgiveable. On page 42, equations 4-6, the velocity y-component and x-components are reversed. Worse and more subtle poblems occur. The author states on page 45 that a projectle launch at a 45 degree angle results in the missle range being twice the maximum height of the projectle.(true) Then, in problem 4.5 at the chapters end, he attempts to prove the angle is 63.4 degrees.(an error)In general the errors are too numerious to easily list in this kind of forum. This book should have been cleaned up before it was released to the public. I wish you well!

Although this book was very helpful as a supplement to my college engineering physics course, Browne makes several mathematical errors in his practice problems. I recommend buying the book because it's a huge help in understanding calculus based physics, but be on the lookout for the errors in the answers. There are usually at least 2-3 per chapter.

It would have been five stars if someone had read the manuscript and checked for absurd errors. You can still use it if you get a kick out of spotting outrageous author errors. But they aren't typos. They're wacko errors. So, if you are not excellent at math and science, you simply cannot use the book. It will sink you into confusion.

The only explanation is this: Browne wanted to give one of his sophomore physics students a project, namely to fill in many of the details of the book. The kid peed his pants and did the job with such excitment that he made loads of errors a high school student would spot. Browne didn't bother to read the damn thing to see whether the kid made any errors. No, he put the thing in an envelope and sent it to the publisher, who published it without checking for errors. Stupid.

If Browne had spent a single work day correcting the howlers, it would have been five stars. It still has that Schaum's quality to it.

The exposition is fairly engaging, and the problems are interesting. However, the answers to many are clearly wrong. For example, in SP 14.14 on pg 179, one can easily see that the answer given is not even dimensionally correct. I would estimate 10% of the problems have incorrect answers. I stopped reading after chapter 14. Too much time is wasted on such problems, only to find YOUR answer WAS correct. I doubt the book was ever proof-read; any physics graduate student worth his/her salt would have caught these errors.

If this book was relatively error free, I would probably give it four or five stars because it outlines college physics for engineers quite nicely. As it is, there are so many errors throughout the book - in equations, solutions, problem statements, etc. - that it will drive even the most persistent student insane. Instead, I suggest that students of college freshman physics use the Schaum's Outline of College Physics, currently in its tenth edition. It is an oldie but a goodie, and the outline is pretty much error-free from beginning to end.
If you have your heart set on working physics problems that make heavy use of calculus, try "Sears and Zemansky's University Physics (10th Edition)", which is out of print. Used copies can usually be found here on Amazon for under $50. There are loads of solved problems and example problems, plus it is a terrific calculus-based college physics text to boot. Since we are talking about a 10th edition, there are few of the errors in that book that you will find in this Schaum's outline.

Sorry, Lena, but there are, in fact, _many_ crucial errors in this text (although equation 4.6 on page 42 is not one of them, like one of the posters stated). Just take a look at page 80, problem 6.1:
(.15)(.60)(2pi*.1)^2 = .035531, not 14
In addition, the .1 should really be 10, unless they meant to type 10 sec/rev, in which case they would have still messed up. If you want a simpler example, just take a look at the page immediately following it.
[(150)(9.8)]/cos(60) = 2940, not 2950.
I don't care how "technical" you get, no matter how many times you repeat these seemingly simplistic mathematic functions, you will never get the answers in the book. (Find a friend or go to your local bookstore to verify the inaccuracy of these problems.)

My mom once told me of a class she took where the professor, on the very first day of class, told them that every day a different student would take detailed notes on the lecture and then turn it in to him. At the end of the course, he would have enough notes in order to be able to publish a book on the subject. I can only imagine that the same situation occurred here, except the students decided to intentionally mess up the problems and solutions as a way of getting back at the professor. However, it really doesn't matter, because without an editor, the book was published anyways and the professor makes money. I'm very tempted to make a list of all the errata and send it to the publisher, but then I'd just be doing exactly what he forced his students to do, and I'd probably only make him more money. Hell, maybe I'll try to publish my own book.

Anyways, if you're going to get this book, make sure you work through the problems yourself and verify everything with an actual textbook. Sounds counterintuitive? It is. However, I'm giving this book two stars because in order to be able to catch the errors in this book, you'll have to have a pretty good grasp of physics, which is what the book was intended to do. It'd be nice if they did it the intended way, though.

Aside from the typos (which I have since learned to expect in the Schaum's Outlines), I liked this book. It was concise and provided a means of getting a good review without having to pour through lengthy textbooks.

Sometimes, some steps are skipped from going from one formula to another but filling in those steps helped with the learning process.

Although not a complete study tool for the physics GRE (because it doesn't cover concepts like Lagrangians or advanced quantum mechanics that are found on the physics GRE), I definitely used it in conjunction with my undergraduate textbooks and I'm convinced it did help me with the physics GRE.

I wasn't particularly fond of his treatment of interference but I think he did a really great job with rotational kinematics and nuclear physics. But overall, a good review of physical concepts.

I'm just an engineering student, so what do I know? Well, I will tell you this much: there are a lot of errors in this book. Someone else wrote a review that said these errors are a good way to learn. This person was also a practicing physicist! I'm still learning and I don't leave much room for interpretation when something is incorrect. I automatically assume I'm wrong because I'm still learning. This is overkill, but there are a LOT of errors so don't throw caution to the wind. This book also explicitly states that you should understand some "obvious" things. If I did, I'd stick with my textbook! Not completely useless, but can be frustrating.