Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good but shallow intro, March 7, 2002
I've done extensive usage of this book lately together with Sears and Zemansky's "University Physics". So it has been natural to me to compare the books while using them day by day.
The result has been quite disappointing for me, regarding Halliday's book.
The book is very clear and well illustrated, and can be successfully used as an easy intro to the subject. It is also complete since you'll find all of the classical and modern Physics topics.
But ... but unfortunately in this case easy has meant shallow to me, since it often happened that for a given topic, concepts were given "as they were", with no explanation of the why or how scientists arrived to a given formulation or result. Take the case of Simple Harmonic Motion: x = Acos(wt+f). Although this formula presents no difficulties to me, I wonder where it does come from, how we (humans) first arrived to this conclusion. I had to read Sears and Zemansky to learn that the experiment that lead to this kind of formula includes a simple form of phasors.
The approaches sounds quite different to me: Halliday says "Take it for granted, be faithful", Sears and Zemansky say "This is the proper kind of formula, and you can see why by yourself if you do ...".
This is important to me, since I use to block myself on a concept until I fully understand it.
Another drawback of this book is the quantity of problems at the end of the chapter. In my humble opinion, an average of 65-70 problems are too few (considering you have the solutions of only half of them, i.e. the odd numbered ones).
So, this is my conclusion: easy and complete introduction to Physics, but too shallow to be really useful in a university course.
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39 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The classic......(I used it as a T.A. and as a student), August 1, 2000
I am a graduate student in physics and I have been a teaching assistant for 3 years now at Iowa State Univesity and SUNY Stony Brook. I have taught introductory physics numerous times and I have teaching experience with this book: IT IS GREAT. It is everything that the students ever dreamed of. Every chapter has really easy to follow explanation of the fundamental theory and numerous step-by-step solved problems and examples. It also has nice boxes with general strategies for solving problems. At the end of every chapter there is an extensive collection of exercises that fit well with the material of the book.An advice for the students: Dont start doing your homework before you understand the material. I have seen it numerous times, students that have not understood what is really going on, trying to solve the problems. Big mistake. Open the Halliday-Ressnick book, study the material first and then solve the problems. There is a general fear among the students to go through the theory of the book (any book) first and spend some quality time trying to absorb it. They just think that physics is too difficult of a subject and that they wont understand a thing. For that reason they just use their collection of formulae and blindly try to apply it in order to solve the problems. I believe that Halliday-Resnick breaks this barrier, their treatment of the subject shows how much they care for the student and they do their best to explain things in the easiest possible way.Something that really breaks the ice is a photograph at the beginning of each chapter that shows an everyday phenomenon that will be treated in the course of that particular chapter, like the picture showin a young girl up in the mountain, with her hair floating up in the air! (a dangerous situation as explained in the book), or the explosion of the Hinderburg and also the picture of a man inside a car that is being hit by a lightning without harming the man inside! As an undergraduate in physics I used this book too for my introductory physics courses so I also have read it from the student point of view. I believe that it does a superb job clarifyng the fundamental principles of physics without difficult or "intellectual-kind" of explanations. It goes step by step building up until you understand it. I also used this book extensively to prepare for the Physics subject GRE test and it helped a lot. I still keep it in my office and frequently look for things that I have forgotten. I totaly recommend it. As for the mathematical prerequisites of the book that a previous reviewer has commented on I would say that you need to how to solve simple integrals (nothing more dramatic than a polyonym or a trigonometric function or 1/r and 1/r^2) and also it would be nice to know the meaning of a derivative as the rate of change of a function with respect to some variable. Nothing more. Enjoy! P.S.1 I am familiar with the 4th and 5th edition. P.S.2 There exists a solution manual for the book. Very helpful.
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16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Probably somewhat too complicated for an intro book, July 23, 1999
By A Customer
Following this text can be quite difficult for one who has a weak command of mathematics or of basis physics principles. The examples are quite interesting, unlike many other textbooks. I must admit that most physics texts for scientists are more complicated than this. When the material is reexplained in a clear manner, the book makes perfect sense. I think that frustration with this book is due highly in part to those who took physics not realizing how challenging it can be, especially for those who do not understand such concepts easily. As for simply skipping lectures and trying to understand physics by reading the book, this is likely to be a complete failure; I don't know if any physics book could appropriately explain physics in an understandable manner without supplement. The problems, however, in the text are excellent, and while sometimes challenging, they are essential for a student to be able to solve problems on exams.
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