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A really great physics text This book is several tiers above in quality what I was forced to deal with as a textbook when I took Freshman Engineering Physics years ago. So when my long-frazzled freshman physics volume finally gave up the ghost, I replaced it with this 10th edition of University Physics. This is how all scientific textbooks should be written. In this book, all concepts are clearly described, there are plenty of instructive figures, and most of all, lots of detailed examples and solved problems. I am specifically recommending the 10th edition, rather than the eleventh edition which is called "University Physics with Modern Physics" by Young et al. That is because with the exception of the modern physics section, the two books are virtually identical. I don't know why authors do this to students. Just as a volume gets affordable they make a minor change and foist a triple-digit price tag upon the poor students, which is largely unaffordable to many undergraduates. In fact this text actually deletes some material from the classical physics section in the 11th edition! So, unless you MUST have this book because you are taking a class and there is no other way around it, or you are interested in the greatly expanded (and very good) modern physics of the 11th edition, save yourself some major bucks and buy this edition used. To prove to you that this out-of-print volume has virtually the same classical physics content as the 11th edition, I present to you the 10th edition's table of contents: MECHANICS. 1. Units, Physical Quantities, and Vectors. 2. Motion Along a Straight Line. 3. Motion in Two or Three Dimensions. 4. Newton's Laws of Motion. 5. Applications of Newton's Laws. 6. Work and Kinetic Energy. 7. Potential Energy and Energy Conservation. 8. Momentum, Impulse, and Collisions. 9. Rotation of Rigid Bodies. 10. Dynamics of Rotational Motion. 11. Equilibrium and Elasticity. 12. Gravitation. 13. Periodic Motion. 14. Fluid Mechanics. THERMODYNAMICS. 15. Temperature and Heat. 16. Thermal Properties of Matter. 17. The First Law of Thermodynamics. 18. The Second Law of Thermodynamics. WAVES/ACOUSTICS. 19. Mechanical Waves. 20. Wave Interference and Normal Modes. 21. Sound and Hearing. ELECTROMAGNETISM. 22. Electric Charge and Electric Field. 23. Gauss's Law. 24. Electric Potential. 25. Capacitance and Dielectrics. 26. Current, Resistance, and Electromotive Force. 27. Direct-Current Circuits. 28. Magnetic Field and Magnetic Forces. 29. Sources of Magnetic Field. 30. Electromagnetic Induction. 31. Inductance. 32. Alternating Current. 33. Electromagnetic Waves. OPTICS. 34. The Nature and Propagation of Light. 35. Geometric Optics. 36. Optical Instruments. 37. Interference. 38. Diffraction. MODERN PHYSICS. 39. Relativity. Appendices. Answers to Odd-Numbered Problems. Credits. Index. To be fair these are the extra chapters that you get if you buy the 11th edition: 38. Quantum Physics I: Photons, Electrons, and Atoms. 39. Quantum Physics II: The Wave Nature of Particles. 40. Quantum Physics III: Quantum Mechanics. 41. Atomic Structure. 42. Molecules and Condensed Matter. 43. Nuclear Physics. 44. Particle Physics and Cosmology. Plus, there is some web-enabled stuff you get with the 11th edition, but I don't think it is worth the huge price tag! A decent intro physics book I think this is a very good introductory physics book. Most of the time, students who give bad reviews to this kind of book just do not know how to study themselves. If you keep asking for solutions manual, all you are saying is that you just want to regurgitate what somebody else has done before...sorry, but science or engineering doesn't work that way. You have to actually use your brain to think VERY CAREFULLY about what you are doing --- learning how to do THAT is probably the only thing you would get out of studying science. You'll forget formulae and examples anyways. When I used the book as a TA, I mostly heard that "I get more out of reading the text than attending lectures." I guess it says something about the faculty quality of my school, but then, I think the topics are very carefully presented, not much of leap of reasoning is necessary, etc. I sometimes felt the wording of the end-of-chapter problems can be a bit confusing, though. Also, compared to some other intro calculus based physics book (such as Holliday & Resnick), the book feels a bit less rigorous, which may actually be good --- I don't know why that is, but it might be related to the fact that the the school where the auther appears to teach has a reputation for very low quality undergraduates. But if that helped to make this textbook even better, that's a good thing. For budding engineers and others who need calc based intro physics, I think the book is excellent. For physicists, I might go with a more rigorous book. An excellent book for study. I find this book to be very good at explaining the concepts of physics. In addition to clearly presenting principles and derivations of those principles, it also clearly addresses issues that are difficult for students to understand. There are numerous examples of how to apply the principles to problems. Some examples are traditional problems that have been around as long as anyone can recall, others are new. This is not to be considered an easy book, nor is the study of physics easy. You must really work to understand the material. To this end there are problems whose solution is not included in the text; the reason is to avoid the plug-and-chug attitude that many people have about physics - that memorizing formulas and techniques are all that are necessary to understand physics. As someone who has been teaching physics for more than 20 years I can tell you that this book is good for both the student and the instructor. Horrible Physics Book This is the worst textbook I have ever read. The book does not prepare you to do a lot of the problems at the end of each chapter. There are some problems that take hours to complete, even though they should really only take a few minutes, simply because the book does not prepare you for certain types of problems. A word of advice to the authors: stay in the lab, stick to research, because you obviously have no idea how to educate students. Great summaries The text is a bit confusing, but reading the figures and summaries helps a lot. Some of the problems aren't covered in the book, so you're going to have to get some help for the harder problems See also:
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