Physics (Hardcover)

~ James S. Walker (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

na --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description

Physics is designed to give readers conceptual insight and create active involvement in the learning process. The book provides a suite of pedagogical tools that give readers an active role in the learning and problem-solving process. This comprehensive book helps readers draw the situation described in the problem statement, visualize the processes taking place, identify and label important quantities, and set up coordinate axes. Shows readers how to analyze the problem, identify the key physical principles at work, and devise a plan for obtaining the solution. Contains a unique 2-column format. Appropriate for readers interested in Algebra-based Physics.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 1087 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall; 1 edition (August 14, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0136331246
• ISBN-13: 978-0136331247
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.8 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #499,506 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Decent but not great, April 30, 2004

By	Matthew Bratkowski "mattster" (Ithaca, NY USA) - See all my reviews

I used this book for my first class in college physics. The book is a decent text for learning physics, but I think that several improvements could be made.

This book is Volume 1 of a two volume set. It includes topics about kinematics, Newton's Laws, Energy, Waves and Sound, Fluids, and Thermodynamics, among other topics. To tell the truth, I don't really see the point of splitting the book up into two volumes since most people will take both classes anyway.

First, the good aspects of the book. This text is intended for an algebra-based (no calculus) college physics course. I does do a good job of limiting the mathematical details and instead presenting the underlying physical concept that is to be understood. There are also numerous illustrated examples and practice problems that are very helpful.

Next, the bad aspects of the book. If you are like me and go to a large state university, then it is quite likely that your professor will be a physicist that may be more interested in his or her research than your class. Since real physics majors do not take this class, your professor may not enjoy teaching it. But even if you have the best professor in the world, it is likely that many of the problems in this book are a bit more simplistic than ones that your professor will give on an exam. The book does include simple problems, but does not illustrate how to work out more difficult ones. If you are considering buying the study guide/answer book, don't. It is terrible. It only shows how to do about ten out of the fifty+ questions per chapter. I've had biology answer key books that included more problems.

Basically, this book is not bad for the basic principles but not very good for more advanced ones. How well the course goes depends on the instructor. I'd recommend taking physics first in high school if you are planning on taking it in college because this book is intended for one semester and it covers 18 chapters. It wouldn't hurt to have some prior knowledge of the subject.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good first course..., January 26, 2004

By	FrKurt Messick "FrKurt Messick" (Bloomington, IN USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)

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This review is from: Physics, Second Edition (Hardcover)

I first had physics in college twenty years ago. I was studying (at that time) astronomy and mathematics, so the first college-level physics class I took fully incorporated calculus and advanced mathematics. It was not until recently, as I took a position as tutor at a local community college, that I discovered a rigourous introductory physics text that did not involve calculus (only one semester of calculus is offered at the college, and usually taken concurrently with or after physics).

Walker's text, second edition, is the text we currently use. We offer one semester of physics, so we only get half-way through the text, which seems designed for a two-semester sequence. As the main focus of the college is technical, so the sections on mechanics, thermal physics and electromagnetism are the most essential sections for our degree programmes.

While this text does not assume calculus, it does assume basic trigonometry and analytic geometry. Dealing with angles and graphing are important skills to know here; dealing with vectors is introduced very early in the text, and continues to be very important throughout.

The book is well organised, with chapter summaries, problem-solving techniques summarised at the end of chapter, high concept questions, drawings, photographs, and real-world applications that relate the theory back to actual experience. From the light refraction in raindrops to the workings of the Global Positioning System, students will learn more about the interactions of the world from this text.

The examples follow a format that shows not only the worked solutions, but also the strategies employed to get to the solutions. Problems are pictured (after all, physics deals with real, substantial things), and conceptual considerations are explained (physics is largely story problems that need to be set up properly, after all). The insights and further considerations from the solutions are explored, and other practice problems are suggested (physics is always about going on to the next problem). The examples follow different categories - there are active examples, conceptual checkpoints, and real-world physics exercises.

The book is divided into five primary sections: Mechanics; Thermal Physics; Electromagnetism; Light and Optics; and Modern Physics. Mechanics largely deals with motion, introducing near the end ideas of gravity, sound, fluids and energy. This leads into Thermal Physics, the study of heat, temperature, and the laws of thermodynamics. Electromagnetism looks at electric force, charge, current, potential/potential energy, magnetism and flux. Light and Optics continues this with electromagnetic waves, proceeding to optical instruments and issues of interference and diffraction. The final section on Modern Physics deals with `fun stuff' like relativity, quantum physics, atomic and nuclear physics and radiation.

Like most texts, it comes with various supplements for students and teachers, computer-based and web-based. There are pocket companions and workbooks with solutions that can also be obtained, related to the text.

This is a good text for classroom study, and also a text for independent study. Some of the exercises are difficult to work through, but there are literally dozens (sometimes hundreds) after each chapter, so there is plenty on which to practice, and all the odd-numbered exercises have answers supplied.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Decent job on concepts, horrible on math application, April 27, 2007

By	Jarrett Graf (Kenosha, WI United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Physics (3rd Edition) (Hardcover)

This book is for a non-physics major physics class, which is mostly going to be biology majors and a few others who are required to take a year of physics but don't need the calculus-based physics. The concepts of physics are explained fairly well, nothing spectacular. The problem with this textbook is the inadequate explanations of the many and varied word problems encountered in a physics class. The homework in this book is a lot more complex than the simplistic explanations given in the chapter. The hardest questions, which invariably show up on the exams, rarely have step-by-step explanations on how to solve them. Physics professors like to talk about the concepts and how important they are to learn. I agree they are important, but when was the last time you saw a physics exam that wasn't 90-100% physics PROBLEMS. I may be odd but I find the concepts of physics fairly easy to understand and almost common sense. The math problems of physics, on the other hand, are long, complex and difficult to understand. The solutions manual isn't worth the money either. If this is a required book for your physics class I would definitely supplement it with a physics book with good explanations of the problems and practice practice practice doing the problems from many different approaches.