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Rating: 
Summary: great book, great choice, but my taste has chosen Hibbeler10
Review: (refers to Dynamics, 5th Edition. but is meant for both volumes):
Lets begin with Meriam5 Pro's:
+ generously big-sized format. what a wonderful look when you open. really inviting, attractive. and enjoyable reading!
+ nicest written text passages: clear, in full, rigorous, easy-to-follow theory, explained with many words and extra-words. reading for interesting and lovely background information.
+ excellent general, comprehensive treatment of particle systems incl rigorous maths (Read this chapter and learn from it!!)derivations. results in many useful key equations. good overview.
+ rigid bodies treated as special case of particle systems (cool!). again, read the "Kinetics of Particle Systems"-chapter from this book, and not from any other.
+ key kinetic equations are easily identified and are given in most general forms, precision to special cases when needed only. good math manipulation/derivation of formulas and equations. gives best kinetics math fundament. Easy to spot the colourful boxes!
+ *each* problem statement supported by picture book illustrations, agreeable.
+ superb appendix: extremely detailed coverage of moments, products of inertia etc. Recomendable chapter.
+ book physical quality outstanding: page paper, hardcover, beautiful overall layout. Highest quality available! inside page layout not as modern as Hibbeler10 but maybe more attractive in total (talking about looks and physical quality).
+ no doubt, best problem set on the market (>1500 probs of immense educational value though they cover plane motion only)
+ recommendable for purchase. (but i d prefer a different one!)
The list of Con's is as long as the Pro's-list:
- neglects the 3rd-dim in general formulation and application of equations of motion, horror!
- except for last chapter whole book covers 2-dim motion only. no use of cylindrical coord's, nowhere.
- sticks to cartesian coord instead of being general
- doesnt cover eccentric impact at all
- 3-dim motion is covered truely "introductory" only.
- lacks basic kinematic formulas (n-t-coord's: no binormal unit vec, no formula for 'rho' curvature y(x) or tan 'psi')
- 'Key Concepts'-pages are not down to the details. interesting background reading but not too useful for application of concepts. No step-by-step procedure is given. Just vague formulations. Good for overview but not of any explicit use.
- Ch1 introduces spherical and cylindrical coord's but are never used in text/examples/problems (motion are in 2-dim's only) *very irritating* (problems and examples are all planar motion problems. except for very last Chapter)
- lacks a number of desirable illustrations t/a math developments
- not as much supplementary material on the companion website, poor.
- with reading the nice text passages one gains info/knowledge/wisdom but not problem-solving skills.
- lacks a few spicey but useful formulas found in Hibbeler's
- no money-saving Combined hardcover package available (only a money-saving 2-vols packaged paperback).
- inconsistent notation for rotational vector 'omega'.to sum up, MeriamKraige is a great buy - I respect the physical quality and content quality though it is a pure undergrad text and never wants to go beyond. all is presented in the most simple manner. no advanced (but useful) formulas, derivations, maths with the result: I am really missing a few equations. Taking into consideration that *none* of the competitors (BeerJohnston, Shames, Hibbeler) is complete either consider buying it if you can live with the above Con's. I could live with them, but my personal taste is towards Hibbeler10. Read also my Hibbeler10-review (amazon.com).
Rating: 
Summary: Uh, this book sucks
Review: I took to reading this book because I enjoyed the book on Statics by the same author. I was not disappointed, but I thought Dynamics was covered much better in Beer & Johnston.
Rating:
Summary: Uh, this book sucks
Review: If I could rate it 0 stars, that's what I would give it. I'm a graduate student at UC Berkeley and I was taking an undergrad dynamics course. The book was utterly dense and really confusing. The only good thing about this thing were the pictures. I'm studying Dynamics as one of my prelim exam topics and I sure as heck am NOT using this book. Try Engineering Dynamics: A Primer by O'Reilly. It's a much better book sans color pictures. In fact, right after I finish writing this review, I'm selling this book on Amazon Marketplace! Oh, did I say this book sucked... no, it's great- ---- buy mine!
Rating:
Summary: Same quality as the Statics text (that is, low quality)
Review: The authors treat this topic with the same dense, obtuse, poorly worded approach they used to write the Statics text. If you ever want to use your textbook except to do assigned problems out of it (that is, you want to learn from it by reading it) don't expect it to help you much, if at all.
Rating:
Summary: Worst Book Ever
Review: There is nothing more frustrating than understanding the chapter, being able to follow the sample problems, and then not knowing where to begin on the actual problems. If you love nausea and headaches, then I recommend buying this book. If you have a soul (or a life) DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK!!! If you're thinking "Oh, I loved Physics in high school, let's give Engineering a try," then I dare you to open this book. Don't blame me when you seek relief by filling your stomach with pain-killers and your mouth with bullets. This book has single-handedly turned me off to the prospect of becoming an Engineer. I implore you, hire a tutor, switch to Political Science, whatever, just don't buy this book. You WILL be disappointed!
Rating: 
Summary: Dynamics(ISBN 0-471-59767-8)
Review: this books really needs more examples that aren't so vague and difficult to understand. They could really try and make it easier to understand in the literature aspect of the book to. The solutions manual absolutely SUCKS. This book does not help what so ever but does guarantee to confuse you. If you could find me a better solutions manual please let me know because I would like to order it. Thank You
Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review: This is really a great book in a hard to grasp subject.It is easy to follow ,has a lot of excellent sample problems and examples ,student-friendly and it is ideal for selfstudy.
Rating:
Summary: useless text
Review: You'd better hope you've got a good professor for dynamics, because this book is absolutely no help. It gives proofs for most equations, but doesn't seem to think any amount of example problems are necessary. I have the bootleg copy of the solutions manual for this book and the author solves most of the problems with bizarre calculus that isn't discussed in the chapter at all.
To top it off, the set (Statics and Dynamics) was $180 at my college bookstore. Pool your money with your classmates, buy one copy of each, and xerox the problems. You will not miss anything.
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