Fundamentals of Physics

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book for first sem in college
Review: Excellent book for the first year in college although it doesn't have a hell lot of information on quantum physics and practically none on general relativity. plus the solutions to half the problems are available only to instructors.

Rating:
Summary: Worst introductory physics book ever written
Review: I have been teaching introductory physics at a university for 10 years and this is the worst book I have ever used. It is full of misconceptions, terrible and incomplete explanations, and the worst writing style I have ever read. All my students intensely dislike this book. We used the textbook by Serway previously, which in my opinion is an infinitely better book. I have no idea why we changed to Halliday but I am trying to get our department to change back to Serway.

Rating:
Summary: A very interested book
Review: I have strongly recomended this book especially the sixth edition. The book contains many chapters which collect and deal with roughly all directions of the nature (life) and illustrate each subject and element with very good sequencely steps and support it with sample problems arranged from lower to a higher level. There are many and many problems at the end of each chapter. The book is so great and the authers are cleavers. I hope the next edition be more funtastic and having a lot of extended materials. Good Luck

Rating:
Summary: GOOD BUT NOT FOR MODERN PHYSICS PARTS
Review: I think Prof.Halliday had done a good job in the parts of mechanics,thermodynamics and electromagnetism.It helps us a lot to get the idea on classical physics and some question are really creative and quite challenging.However,it not very good for those who try to learn modern physics from this book,especialy the explanation of Schrodinger equation.Readers will find it confusing because Halliday just touch on it lightly without giving us a clear view of Quantum Mechanics.Especialy I don't like the Schrodinger equation form in this book.It seems that the author try to prevent the undergratuates scare about Mathematics.But we all know that the only language in Physics is Mathematics.So I suggest readers who want to learn the fundamentals idea of modern physics can try Young's University Physics.

Rating:
Summary: Worst introductory physics book ever written
Review: I used the previous edition but I looked at this edition and the only thing that has changed from editions is the cover, the formatting, and the reordering of the problems. It is a great book in retrospect. There were a few moments where I really disliked this book. The first half of the book was a breeze. My review of the second half (E&M) is a little mixed. I felt some of the concepts were not explained clearly enough and I spent way too much time and effor trying to figure out what was going on. Overall though the book explains things pretty thoroughly. The problems go from easy to hard. Do all the odd problems sequentially and you should be good. You don't need calculus really, but it is pretty hard to understand some of the E&M stuff without it. Optics section was rough and I spent way too much time on it. Special relativity and quantum mechanics is just a survey. The quantum and relativity part of the book doesn't really explain anything precisely and instead tries to convince the reader with qualitative arguments. The equations used are special cases with nice closed form solutions. I think the last few chapters of the book is just filler.

Rating:
Summary: Good intro physics book
Review: I used the previous edition but I looked at this edition and the only thing that has changed from editions is the cover, the formatting, and the reordering of the problems. It is a great book in retrospect. There were a few moments where I really disliked this book. The first half of the book was a breeze. My review of the second half (E&M) is a little mixed. I felt some of the concepts were not explained clearly enough and I spent way too much time and effor trying to figure out what was going on. Overall though the book explains things pretty thoroughly. The problems go from easy to hard. Do all the odd problems sequentially and you should be good. You don't need calculus really, but it is pretty hard to understand some of the E&M stuff without it. Optics section was rough and I spent way too much time on it. Special relativity and quantum mechanics is just a survey. The quantum and relativity part of the book doesn't really explain anything precisely and instead tries to convince the reader with qualitative arguments. The equations used are special cases with nice closed form solutions. I think the last few chapters of the book is just filler.

Rating:
Summary: Wiley Publishing produces great indroductory physics book
Review: What really makes this book great is the layout and format used. With clearly indexed chapters, main in-chapter headlins, practice problems, free interactive learning on the internet, and end of chapter synopsis, this book can explain physics to anyone interested. Physics is a science that needs to be understood correctly the first time. I really would have liked this book in high school. The end of chapter problems are very difficult, but they require you to really understand the material. the writing style used is similar to the times you read those great articles and say to yourself, "why can't everything be that clear." Great for physics majors, and good for other majors. 5 Stars