Rating: 
Summary: I wish there was a "0 stars" option
Review: "A ring of mass M and radius R lies on its side on a frictionless table. It is pivoted to the table at its rim. A bug of mass m walks around the ring with speed v, starting at the pivot. What is the rotational velocity of the ring when the bug is (a) halfway around and (b) back at the pivot."Which side? Where's that pivot? Define "around"! What the heck is this question asking??? THERE'S NO DIAGRAM! There are diagrams for much more obvious questions than this! I'm used to textbooks that have *decent* examples, and sometimes even summaries at the end of the chapter (those are nice :)). And if you miss something, no big deal, you can go find it again later. But this ... thing, you have to read all the impossible-to-follow examples to get enough info to understand what comes next. If I don't get something, I have to go back, and find out I don't understand what I need to know to understand it, and I don't understand what I need to know to understand that either. Maybe if I had forever to read this, and was actually really interested in all of it, I'd be okay with this book. But as a textbook, with material I'm not life-or-death interested in, it's HORRIBLE. This is NOT for someone who has never seen mechanics before. I've taken lower level physics courses before, and usually have a good grasp of the stuff. But this textbook has just confused me way too much. Read this only if you have no life outside this book, because if you're using it as a crutch for other stuff (like the course I'm using it for), it just won't make any sense. To understand an example, you have to have completely absorbed *everything* that came before it in the book. If you're really looking for an introductory book, don't waste your money on this one unless you have LOTS of time to put in.
Rating: 
Summary: I Used this Textbook
Review: As almost every other reviewer already pointed out, this book is challenging; perhaps it's too difficult for freshman level. If you go into this book without having good knowledge of AT LEAST 2 semesters' worth of calculus, you'll have to learn a lot of math along the way. The book almost completely lacks routine excersises, making it a bad choice for self-learning. Also unfortunate is the authors' tendency to introduce important concepts amid lengthy and complicated examples; this lack of structure artificially increases the difficulty of what is already challenging material. I know of at least one flagrant error in the text that has serious implications for the validity of the material presented (chap 7, p.292 - the cross product w x r is evaluated incorrectly). I believe this book is too advanced for at least 90% of freshman physics courses. A typical community college course, say, would likely be dumbed down far too much for the class to benefit from this book, and a more traditional textbook should be used. Still, the book has unparallelled scope and depth compared to ANY freshman physics text, and is probably the best text there is for classes with students of high ability.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent book
Review: First of all - where's the fifth star? Well, since I've encountered this book after studying mechanics, I really can't testify to its value as an introductory book, nor to its internal consistency. So I'll withhold that fifth star. As for the other four - this book is my favorite mechanics book out there, not because it teaches mechanics in some wonderful way, but because of two other reasons: 1. it contains many illustrative examples, which are not to be seen in any other book. These examples help clarify many physical concepts and, well, they're extremely interesting and entertaining in their own right! 2. The problems at the end of each chapter are simply the most thought-provoking and challenging problems I've even encountered. I think no other problems have made me reconsider the mechanics I've learned as much as these have. Hey, some of them remain unsolved to this day! I might also add that this book also offers some parts which are almost never found in other books: 1. an IN-DEPTH discussion of rigid body motion in 3d, and 2. Transformation theory and special relativity. This offers the freshman a chance of studying this key-idea in physics.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but NEEDS A GOOD REVISION!!!!
Review: Good, but NEEDS A GOOD REVISION!!!!
Ok I don't agree with the 1 star grading by one of the reviewers here. Yet what he points out does make an awful lot of sense. The book needs a BIG revision. It has not been changed in a while and although the mechanics that it describes has not changed either, the diagrams could use a good enhanced computer touch. Like most of the reviewers here I too used this book for my honors freshman physics course at Cornell (PHYSICS 116). I don't like that fact that they pull tons of things out of a magic hat just because it works. Instead of explaining the stuff they magically bring in the chapter "Notes" like they do they could simply do it while they are explaining the material. I think that if you are in an "advanced" physics course you ought to now that stuff it should not be just optional. Thankfully I was taking a Differential Equations class, which helped understand that harmonic oscillators which are so poorly explained in this text book.
There is good and bad to say about the problems at the end of every chapter. As many here point out they are indeed challenging, but they are not clear many times. Also the "Ans. clue[s]" are not reliable since we (my professor, and my class) have found several of them to be wrong (Example: Problem 3.17). I would love to see a revised copy of this book with a solutions manual like most modern text books, since it would make it much easier to study for exams. I should add that the reason they use this book in my school as well as many others, is not so much for its reputation as a "good book", but because it's one of the only books out there that combines a decent amount of relativity with the classical Newtonian mechanics that most books concentrate on. Yet not even the relativity chapters are really complete. Again it could use some nicely drawn space-time diagrams, which are so necessary in understanding simultaneous events and the like.
I gave it a 3 start rating because the book is not as horrible as to give it anything lower than that; but I can't even think of someone liking it so much as to give it a 5. It definitely needs lots of revision before it gets to that level of excellence. Hope this was hepfull....
Rating:
Summary: Appropriate for honors physics
Review: I am a college professor who has used this text a number of times for an honors course in freshman physics. Quite simply, it is in a class by itself. Standard physics textbooks (Halliday/Resnick, Serway, Young/Freedman, etc.) are all pretty similar to each other, and pretty good if you are learning calculus at the same time. Then there are mechanics books suitable for junior/senior physics majors, or graduate students. There just isn't anything else in between. Students, however, uniformly report that they hate the book--they sometimes express this view quite vehemently in course evaluations. Those that find the course valuable tend to view it like a particularly rigorous boot camp--maybe for Green Berets or Navy Seals or something like that--really tough while you are doing it but a deep sense of accomplishment afterwards. The book is about as non-glossy as you can imagine--no color pictures (or color anything else), no cool pictures of rock climbers or ballet dancers, no warm fuzzies. Just text and equations. But everyone agrees that the homework problems are cool and challenging. Under no circumstances should you use Kleppner and Kolenkow unless you (or your students if you are the instructor) have completely mastered basic calculus and are moderately comfortable with concepts like multidimensional integration, partial derivatives, and differential equations. And be prepared to work hard.
Rating:
Summary: Appropriate for honors physics
Review: I am a college professor who has used this text a number of times for an honors course in freshman physics. Quite simply, it is in a class by itself. Standard physics textbooks (Halliday/Resnick, Serway, Young/Freedman, etc.) are all pretty similar to each other, and pretty good if you are learning calculus at the same time. Then there are mechanics books suitable for junior/senior physics majors, or graduate students. There just isn't anything else in between. Students, however, uniformly report that they hate the book--they sometimes express this view quite vehemently in course evaluations. Those that find the course valuable tend to view it like a particularly rigorous boot camp--maybe for Green Berets or Navy Seals or something like that--really tough while you are doing it but a deep sense of accomplishment afterwards. The book is about as non-glossy as you can imagine--no color pictures (or color anything else), no cool pictures of rock climbers or ballet dancers, no warm fuzzies. Just text and equations. But everyone agrees that the homework problems are cool and challenging. Under no circumstances should you use Kleppner and Kolenkow unless you (or your students if you are the instructor) have completely mastered basic calculus and are moderately comfortable with concepts like multidimensional integration, partial derivatives, and differential equations. And be prepared to work hard.
Rating:
Summary: If you want a deep understanding of mechanics, buy this book
Review: I unfortunatley had to use the Serway text in my first year physics course. It really doesn't explain anything well and patrionizes the reader. While this text is extremely difficult, it forces the reader to understand every possible aspect of the subject, while at the same time realizing the power and beauty of calculus. If you are thinking about buying a mechanics book and are serious about really understanding physics, this is really the only text you should get. However, I give it 4 stars because it is NOT an introduction. You will be able to understand the concepts if you did high school physics and first year calculus in my opinion.
Rating: 
Summary: still the best
Review: This is still the best intro mechanics book. It tries to teach you how the world works. In comparison, most other textbooks are recipe books that show you methods on how to solve important sets of problems but do not really teach physics. Feynman is the exception but is too scattered for use as a textbook. Goldstein gives you more tools but don't explain them. Landau and Lifschitz is very good but does almost everything from path integrals which I believe is not suitable as an intro text. Many people have suggested that the problems are hard. I think the problems are original in trying to teach you physics concepts. Don't use this book if you are trying to satisfy requirements. Don't try to be a physics major if you find this book uninspiring--okay if you find it takes time.
Rating:
Summary: Good for physics professors, not for hobbyists
Review: This text is used for MIT's advanced mechanics course, taught in the fall of the freshman year, sometimes still by Dan Kleppner himself. Historically, about 50% of the students drop out of the course and retreat to one of the other physics variants (which use Young and Freedman, or Halliday, Walker, Resnick, I believe). Yes, that's right, valedictorians and overachievers drop left and right out of this course, many citing the text as to abstract and difficult to follow. I understand that many other elite universities have similar classes that use this book with similar results. Some people have very good things to say about this book. They are the ones who already have a good understanding of classical mechanics and are looking for a rigorous, challenging set of examples and problems. I have found this sort of person to be very much in the minority. For the majority of people, who are looking to get an intuitive view of mechanics and how they apply to the modern world, I would suggest Halliday, Walker, and Resnick's Fundamentals of Physics instead of this book. But if you really want deep insight into the nature of mechanics (i.e. you're going to teach it someday), run--don't walk--to the bookstore and buy this book today. On a side note, the E&M portion of the MIT advanced physics series uses Purcell's Electricity and Magnetism, Vol. II. My recommendation would be the same for this book as well: if you love physics and understand it well already, buy the book. Otherwise, avoid it like the plague.
Rating:
Summary: Great book (for the right audience)
Review: We used Kleppner & Kolenkow in '87 in Physics 250 at Yale (the highest and hardest of five levels of introductory physics, where half the people left after the first day, and another half by the end of the year). Or rather, we used photocopies -- I believe the original was out of print even then. If you aren't good at math, or don't have a good intuition about physics (and mechanics in particular), you probably won't like this book. If you're ten years out of college and haven't done an derivative since, but remember Really Liking calculus, this isn't the book for you. If you've found other books on mechanics confusing, this one will be more so. Finally, as other reviewers have mentioned, an update would be nice. Oscillators should be covered (though hopefully not at the expense of the largely-irrelevent-but-fun rigid-body motion). But in the nine-and-a-half years I spent getting a B.S. and Ph.D. in physics, this was my favorite text.
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