Customer Reviews

Vector Mechanics for Engineers: Dynamics

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

This book is horrible. The concepts are loosely introduced, you see variables all over the place without understanding what they mean. The explanations are also very weak. The author seems to be all over the place. For someone taking a first year dynamics course, this book may not enable you to understand the key principles. The examples are are very poor and do not prepare you to the end of chapter problems. SAVE YOUR MONEY AND DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK!

Very few books provide solid material like this one (Meriam's is an excellent one too). In fact I have become interested in mechanics after I was Introduced to this text for the 1st time in 1984. Recently, I started to collect and work all the editions of this book. This text requires a skilful instructor that can present the material in a way worthy of this text. please do not hate this text if you really want unsurpass knowledge in mechanics, because there are many "engineering mechanics" texts around you that teach nothing.

Without doubt, this is the worst textbook I ever had the misfortune to read.

I used it for a rushed 1st year dynamics course, and found the book utterly useless. The concepts are scattered and are introduced using complicated mathematics, some of which is beyond 1st year level. Even simply trying to read through the verbal explanations is near impossible for beginner students, simply because of the depth of knowledge required to do so.

The problems, while plentiful, are simply too difficult. Original thinking is one thing, these problems require something else entirely. I realise, of course, that textbooks must be challenging in order to maintain academic standards, but this book goes too far, to the point where students end up discouraged from the subject simply because the concepts are so difficult.

While I maintain the greatest respect for Mr Beer, as I am sure that he is a brilliant engineer (his book is testament to that), the text is simply too in-depth. For future editions, I recommend that he go through the book and greatly simplify both the language and the problems.

Until this book is simplified, I recommend the Hibbler Dyanmucs text to any other students out there.

I don't believe I've ever read a more illogical, poorly organized, overly difficult piece of trash in my life. I'm guessing the only reason my professor used this book is because some of the people in the acknowledgments are affiliated with Penn State. That's probably the only reason anybody uses this book. To anybody who will be required to waste their money on this book, don't even bother reading the sections because they make absolutely no sense and are completely unrelated to the example problems. There is no reason, in my opinion, why a student shouldn't be able to learn and completely understand the material covered in a course soley from reading the textbook. That is clearly not the case with this book, though.

I found it easier to understand the concepts out of Meriam's book. I'm sure this is an important and useful text, but wow is it dense.

One tip: beg, borrow, or steal the solution manual for this text... the problems are absolutely, without question, infeasible without it. Others have said it: they're just too hard. I don't understand what he was thinking writing impossible problems. My 190 year old professor couldn't even solve many of them.

Like many others who use this, I am an engineering student and used the two parts of this book for my Statics and Dynamics classes. Trying to plan ahead, I bought the combined Statics & Dynamics book for my Statics class. With no warning, the publisher then released the 9th edition of this book, rendering my 8th edition obsolete and forcing me to buy this, the 9th edition Dynamics book, but also giving me the opportunity to compare the two. There is almost no difference in content between the 8th and 9th editions -- the sections explaining the material and the examples are directly copied. The homework problems were all changed, however, rendering it impossible to use an old version for a class (mostly they just rearranged the problems and changed the numbers). This is profiteering at its worst and shows me that the publishers (and likely the authors, too) are interested in nothing more than making a profit at the expense of students.

Regarding the content, this book is okay, but certainly could be better. The statics part of the book was better written and better explained. I managed to learn the material and did well in the class, but sometimes couldn't figure out why my answers didn't match the book's on homework problems. I guess I could have bought a solution manual, but I feel that a text should contain enough information for you to understand how to do any homework problem it contains. This book could have done more to clarify what assumptions can be made in certain cases (i.e. what can you assume when a body is rolling without slipping?). In general, the information was all there, but not well organized.

I used this book for the course of Dynamics in Civil Engineering. It was the textbook of my class. The examples are basic, and show you how to use the basic principles of dynamics to solve the more challeging problems at the end of each chapter. I enjoyed a lot this book, and I recommend it to everyone.

This is hands-down the worst textbook I have ever used.
Here, in a nutshell, is what it's like to use this book:
You read the sections, study the examples, and realize you have a vague understanding of the concepts introduced. But what the heck, you're ready to try some problems! You look over all of them and discover that they don't look like anything you've ever seen before. You pick one anyway and try it. You draw your little FBD...and that's as far as you get. You look back through the section, glance over the examples, and look at the problem again. Nothing. So you pick another one. And get just as far. The next day in class, you ask the professor to work out one of those pesky problems for you. After a while, you realize he's taking a different approach from anything in the book, because even he can't figure out what the authors are doing.
There is not enough information provided to do the problems. They're too hard. I honestly have no idea where they get some of these problems or how they expect us to be able to do any of them with the information and exmaples provided. In some cases, there is seemingly no connection whatsoever between what you just read and the problem you're pulling your hair out over. As a text for the entry-level dynamics student, this book goes way over your head. It's simply too hard for a beginner. Save yourself time, money, and frustration and stay away from this book until you have a solid foundation in dynamics.

It was very helpful in the subject. The chapters are short so its easier to get through. I only got it because it was required for class. The practice problems had all levels of difficulty as well.

I could not follow the examples or the chapter explanations. I felt as though Beer and Johnson did not want me to understand the basic concepts. I would spend hours on a few problems and understand about half the material. For example, how come they do not explain what total acceleration of the system is. I had to ask my professor. I would buy Lindeburg books on fundamentals of engineering. Do not buy this book even if it is assigned to the class. Most of your classmates or going to work together on homework problems and never open the book.