Mechanics (3rd Edition)

Rating:
Summary: Lacking substance
Review: A very solid undergraduate Mechanics text. Symon is clear, concise, and to the point. If you want rambling drivel, go read something by David Griffiths. If you want an indispensable undergraduate text, look no further. The problems are excellent as well - no complaints here. Nice bibliography.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Undergrad Mechanics Book
Review: A very solid undergraduate Mechanics text. Symon is clear, concise, and to the point. If you want rambling drivel, go read something by David Griffiths. If you want an indispensable undergraduate text, look no further. The problems are excellent as well - no complaints here. Nice bibliography.

Rating:
Summary: Mechanics by Symon
Review: An extremely poorly written book!!
. Almost no examples
. Pure dictation of formulas, which my pet parrot already
memorized
. Too much pep talk without hard core derivation of equations
. Chapter on tensors badly written with outdated symbols
This book is the epitomy of the failure of physics and science
education in the US, no wonder, we need to import so many
PHD's from overseas while our own creativity in physics
declines steadily as a result of too much "snowing"
from this type of book, which instills fear, discouragement,
and frustration to our young aspiring physics students.

Rating:
Summary: Symon a bad book? , I dont agree
Review: I have used this book extensively over many years. I have found it to be very clear and straightforward. It is fairly mathematical but nothing beyond the normal freshman/sophmore college mathematics is really needed. The problem set is excellent over 400 problems are in this book and although there are some pretty easy ones there are some real killers in there as well. Try 3.56, the effect of the earth's oblateness on satellite orbits, for example. I spent many days on this one, and I was a very good student. (the real killers are usually designated by a star). It is true that Symon does not include many examples explicitly in his book but there are easy problems in the problem sets which serve the same purpose. At some point a student needs to be able to work from a set of physical principles without examples, because when you are working on an original problem later in industry or grad school there are no examples. Symon expects this and so he is a bit more demanding than some other authors. I find Symon's mathematical development easy to follow and quite good. This is my favorite mechanics textbook and I own more than 20. There are answers to about half the problems in the book and the book is pretty free of errors and typos. (a nice feature for me) Please also note that this book has been in print for 50 years, how many poor books is that true of.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent resource
Review: I used this book in my two semester-long intermediate mechanics classes, and I came away with an excellent understanding of the subjects covered. I plan on keeping this text as a resource throughout my career in physics.

Rating:
Summary: The worst book in the world
Review: If I could give this book -(infinite) stars I'm sure I would. Theres nothing so bad in all times. Symon just gives thousands and thousands of formulas, without explaining anything. How can a book of physics have no examples? The exercises are also idiot, very simple and repetitive.

Rating:
Summary: Still the best!
Review: If somebody ask me which book on Mechanics to really learn the subject using an appropriate mathematical language, only Symon comes to my mind. This is a book that influenced generations of physicists and keeps on doing it.
Even the part on analytical mechanics, which, I believe, is not among the main goals of the book, is very, very readable! I can say the same about the two chapters (13 and 14) on Relativity -- and here goes a suggestion: these two chapters are the best introduction on Einstein's special theory available!
I feel very bad in finding here a person of the same country as me showing so much disliking about a book that has been used all around my country (not to say the world) for decades!

Rating:
Summary: Too much digression.
Review: If you like a large amount of digressions by an auther; this is the book for you. Students in need of a text that can help them through tough proofs or examples of problems should not use this book. For example on page 70 the auther writes, "The assertion "we can show that..." throughout this book will mean that the reader who has followed the discussion to this point should be able to supply the proof himself.... Long or tricky proofs will either be given in the text, or a referance cited, or the reader will be warned that it is not easy." Under this footnote in my book is a big question mark.

Rating:
Summary: Great undergraduate text! perfect Goldstein supplement!
Review: This book and Goldstein's Mechanics is all you will ever need as a practicing physicist. Symon's book has great detail and is written in a clearly understandable style that is perfect for a 2 semester course in mechanics at the advanced undergraduate level. It will also serve you well as a supplement to Goldstein's mechanics, with more examples and explicit detailed calculations, which show the steps that Goldstein sometimes glosses over.
Overall an excellent text, I have yet to see a better mechanics book at this level. I just wonder when a new edition is due out, its probably the only reason people don't use this text as THE STANDARD for all undergraduate mechanics courses.
In any event, if your studying mechanics this is the book to have!

Rating:
Summary: You dont want to know how hard this book is
Review: This book is the standard undergrad book on Mechanics, and its because of the difficulty. You will spend many hours solving his homework problems, and he has NO worked examples that are useful. Like most books, the examples he does pick need to be significantly modified for the homework problems and for an undergrad this is especially hard. Especially since it's usually the first class an undergrad takes that introduces him to the 'upper-level' courses taken in Jr and Sr years.

I can only tell you to work out every problem you can and find any worked examples in these Schaum's Outlines you can. In the end, you will either want to leave physics or you will know your stuff.