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Rating: 
Summary: Gives me the creeps everytime I see it
Review: What a bulky book, my all time companion during those long walks to the city library. How I would open you and reopen you and close you and reclose you every other day! How I kept all my stuff in you so that I might not have to spend hours searching for the appropriate answer pages! How I'd cuss when you got some of the answer solutions wrong! How I'd get annoyed when your problems did not occur in real world situations. How I'd struggle to keep my mind when I encountered on of those Niko problems. I still remember the dread I used to feel when I saw a three-dot problem. And the agony that a two-dot would sometimes be harder than a three dot. You gave me many hints to solve those problems, but why didn't you give sufficient explanations? Why? Why did you make me do the same lengthy problem with a differnt set of numbers and then speculate about the different results? Did I learn anything conceptually from you? I think it was all plugging in stuff, and making sense of diagrams. That's why now all that I've learnt seems like a distant memory. You are not welcome in my thoughts any more, oh bulky book!
Rating: 
Summary: Not a great physics text
Review: Characteristics of this book (and ratings out of 10). Note that all ratings and descriptions are in comparison to other books.Difficulty of material: 8 (not necessarily a good thing for everyone), the book is more difficult than most freshman physics texts (calc-based), but there are some derivations that were left out or some were poor in explanation. Examples: 5, the setup of the examples appear as though they would be excellent, and the setup was a good idea. However, Tipler did a poor job in his carrying out the explanation portion of the examples. Because of this, some of the examples are difficult to follow. This is probably the most important point of the book--examples are crucial to problem solving! Tipler's text doesn't stand up. Problem Planning: 7, some of the problems have terrible setups, others are simply just vague. In one problem you have to assume a weight for the problem, although this was difficult to discern from the problem description. It was just confusing about how the problem should be approached. Tipler should have actually given the statement "assume a weight," instead of leaving it vague. Another problem had two different masses for answers. That is simply poor planning. The positive aspects of the problem set is that, at least for some colleges, the answers to all the problems can be found on the college's website. Also, there are lots of problems to work, and the conceptual problems are, for the most part, well done. Compared to Other Books: I have 5 other physics books and this is by far the worst of them. Serway's or Young's books are FAR better. There is far more explanation and the problems are just as difficult (Serway's has even harder material in some aspects). The other texts contains more and better derivations (assuming you are looking for the hardest editions). Other books give much better material for the amount of money asked for. If you must buy this book for class, I would recommend getting an additional used book (from an author other than Tipler) for reference. You may find you use other texts more than the assigned text because Tipler's text is poor. Also, problems on physics tests are usually from other books--so working problems in other books can only help test grades.
Rating: 
Summary: dazed and confused
Review: Terrible book - often when explaining problems, it skips steps (so you have no idea how they got from one point to the next), and they show so few examples. Over 100 homework problems for each chapter, with only the odd-#ed answers in back (no explanations, or even-#ed answers), and most of the problems have nothing similar that are explained in the chapter!
I'm having a rough time comprehending this book, and I'm an 'A' calculus student.
Rating: 
Summary: Very excelent.
Review: The first equation that you see in this book is that "Tipler= Quality" At first, this seems a little pompous and presumptuous. But it is alas, oh so true. When I first started physics this year, I had no experience of calculus. I thought taking a physics course based in calc was going to be hard. I was wrong, as Tipler's explinations were so well done that I found the math to be easy. Although its true that most of my physics learning came from my high school teacher, the only thing he lectured on where things that came almost directly from Tipler. This was convinient if I didn't feel like taking extensive notes. By the end of the simester, I had mechanics mastered. With Tipler by my side, the biggest challenge in learning physics was overcoming my own lazyness.
Rating:
Summary: dazed and confused
Review: this book is BAAAD. i hated it. it's very hard to understand. it's too technical. i think it should explain the concepts more in english, instead of all technical then it'll be easier to understand.
Rating:
Summary: This book is so hard to understand.
Review: This is the best physics book I have ever seen. The text is well written, the examples are great. What sets this book apart from other physics textbooks I have seen are these advantages. Examples are set up in columns so that on the left, it tells u whats going on in english and on the right, whats going on in math. There are great section summary pages and problem solving guides at the end of every chapter. The problems are each labeled with a difficulty, and they are creative problems. There are optional sections which you do not need to read but enhance what you are learning in lecture and reading. Overall, a great book.
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