Customer Reviews

Vibrations and Waves (Manchester Physics Series)

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

 

 

before you read this review, please keep in mind that constructing smooth paragraph isn't my thing. I hope to make that up with a detailed review. As the topic suggests, this review is about examples and end up chapter problems in this book. That said, here's some rough stat on 'em...

Chapter 1: Simple Harmonic Motion (SHM)
4 examples, 13 end of chapter problems

Chapter 2: The Damped Harmonic Oscillator
3 examples, 8 end of chapter problems

Chapter 3: Forced Oscillations
3 examples, 12 end of chapter problems

Chapter 4: Coupled Oscillators
2 examples, 10 end of chapter problems

Chapter 5: Travelling Waves
2 examples, 15 end of chapter problems

Chapter 6: Standing Waves
3 examples, 15 end of chapter problems

Chapter 7: Interference and Diffraction of Waves
0 examples, 11 end of chapter problems

Chapter 8: The Dispersion of Waves
2 examples, 11 end of chapter problems


You might be thinking this is too few but let me tell you something, this is a fair job for a book with 242 pages. These examples aren't "plug and chuck 2 line examples" like most other books do. Instead, they are lengthy ones. A couple of them go as long as two pages.

It's remarkable that all end of chapter problems have solution (not just answer key, but worked out solutions) at the end of the book. In relatively easier (especially early questions like #1 or #2) author sometimes takes freedom of just showing the answer...but this is no biggie. The rest have detailed enough solutions.

Another thing worth mentioning is usages of figures and diagrams in the book. The author adds figures whenever possible. At first i thought i would count how many figures there are per chapter but...well there's too many of them. If all figures were to be added up then i would say there's at least one per two pages in the book. There's only 1 picture (as in real photo) though...which imo is good. I personally prefer sketches over pictures.

Lastly i would like to mention Vibrations and Waves (The M.I.T. Introductory Physics Series). It is a widely used book on the subject and it's pretty decent...and a "classic". However, that book has no worked out examples what so ever. So, if you're using that book for your course (which is a likely case) and you need another book that has worked out examples then this might be the one for you. The topic covered in these two books are similar. Click the preview button, check the table of content for both books, and compare for yourself.

I have been using this book for teaching undergraduate students at Engineering Faculty and, as you may guess, I also use MIT book. The book by King does exactly what it is promised by its author (good consistency on its purpose which is not often the case), it is short, attractive and not frightening, it is also self contained, logical development of the topics and so on . So it is an excellent introductory book to the subject based on solved problems and examples. It is very good to have a book that allow students to go forward by themselves, and solved exercises at the end are a good way if stimulating to go beyond what is there. So students can start from those and work out variations, they can try to generalize the results and so on.
The book is well written and chapters are in a natural order, and again, it is good (positive) that the author dedicates some time, detailed analysis of the problems (even that for well trained students may look too long explanations).

I do recommend the book for a first encounter with the specific subject for students in general undergraduate courses from engineering schools, however for students in physics it maybe necessary to have a book with more deep approach to the topics but in that case it will come as very good complement.

It is not easy for me to do a comparative analysis with the MIT book because my impression is that they have slightly different purposes and the MIT book needs additional material and complements, but I like both, so I use both, and what I want to insist is the possibility of King's approach to provide material for a self guided learning into the subject.

Well writen and easy to read.
My class used this book.
It easy to understand for undergraduate students.