Complete Idiot's Guide To Physics (The Complete Idiot's Guide) (Paperback)

by Johnnie T. Dennis (Author) "These are the things you deal with every day of your life..." (more)
Key Phrases: outer energy level, hard rubber rod, charged insulator, Plain English, Johnnie's Alert, Newton's Figs (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Intended for high school and college students required to take at least one physics course, this book offers an easy-to-understand, comprehensive companion to their school textbooks that brings real-world relevance, and even a touch of fun, to Einstein's favorite subject.

About the Author
Johnnie T. Dennis was selected as the 1970 National Teacher of the Year, the United States' oldest, most selective, and highest honor for secondary education teachers. Now retired, he spent his 40-year career in the classroom, teaching students not only how to learn physics, but how to have fun with it.

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Alpha (August 5, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 159257081X
• ISBN-13: 978-1592570812
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #699,424 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Horribly edited, June 15, 2004

By	Mark Goldman (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

I studies physics over 20 years ago in high school, so perhaps I'm rustier than I realized. BUT, what seemed like a helpful book was seriously marred by repeated inconsistencies between the diagrams and the description of the diagrams in the text. "km/hr" in the text are shown as "km/m" in the diagram; symbols are different; in one case, the text clearly meant to refer to "t" [the symbol for time] but the symbol was just dropped ["if it moves for hours" instead of "if it moves for t hours"]. Plus, the author does a good job of setting up the basic explanations, but when giving example problems, he relies on the diagrams to explain the solutions. Since the diagrams are often wrong or inconsistent, it left me a little muddled. I'm not sure how anyone made it through this book. Didn't they have a copy editor?

38 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Typos and forced humor, June 13, 2004

By	Steve C Dotson "neuroknot" (Lake Junaluska, NC United States) - See all my reviews

At first blush, in the bookstore, this seemed like a great book--but the typos in chapter 2 are infuriating! For example: on page 15 of 2003 edition you travel 15 miles in 3.0 minutes and their answer is 30 miles an hour! Nooooo!!!! Please, this is supposed to help idiots--not be written and proofread by idiots... This is very sloppy publishing and it cannot be tolerated!
A few pages later, the reader is treated to a defintion of acceleration in which a crucial symbol is completely missing.
If not for the typos I would have overlooked the forced enthusiasm in the preamble to the discussion on dimensional analysis, but "All right. Hold on to your hats. Here goes!" begins to annoy one after wasting too much time finding their typos...This is my first Idiots Guide, and it will likely be my last! Shame on the Penguin Group, the parent company!

27 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars This Complete Idiots Guide Needs Work, March 29, 2004

By A Customer

When I earned an A in Calculus II and decided to take my first Physics course, I realized I needed help learning the concepts. I decided to pick up "the Complete Idiots Guide to Physics." Initially, I thought it was a good purchase because the other Idiot's Guides in the series (Calculus, Programming, etc) were enjoyable and really easy to follow, but not this particular book.

In the beginning, the author would go from one topic to another with very little clarity (I don't know if he continues to do this because I stopped reading after the first four chapters). It was worse than the techings in my assigned Physics textbook for college, but at least my textbook gave numerous sample problems (understanably, the Idiots Guide could never do this).

The quiz questions, entitled "Physics Phun," were not very clear in explaination. I got the majority of those questions incorrect because the questions within the text didn't fully teach enough of the topic for a person to understand. Those questions also lacked some important information to correctly get an answer. The author also failed to explain how the answers to those quiz questions were derived- he only gives the answers in the appendix. How else is a student to learn if there isn't any way to identify what mistakes he/she made while solving problems?

Because of a lack of helpful tutorial matter for beginning physics students to understand the basics, I hoped this book would deliver. Unfortunately, it did not.