While physics can seem challenging, its true quality is the sheer simplicity of fundamental physical theories--theories and concepts that can enrich your view of the world around you. COLLEGE PHYSICS, Ninth Edition, provides a clear strategy for connecting those theories to a consistent problem-solving approach, carefully reinforcing this methodology throughout the text and connecting it to real-world examples. For students planning to take the MCAT exam, the text includes exclusive test prep and review tools to help you prepare.
For my current purposes, it's done. This book is meant to teach physics at the beginner level without invoking calculus. Thinking back, now that I am a teaching assistant, this book (and the other version with calculus) are actually excellent (though unfortunately too thick but that's unavoidable). It contains everything basic one ever needs to know about physics and the physical world: mechanics, electricity, magnetism, thermodynamics, you name it. And I think sometimes, maybe it's because I am not a very good physics student, I still learn new things from such an elementary text even though I am now a graduate student in physics.
I'm good at math and found fundamental physics to be quite easy, but I felt that certain aspects were not explained as well as they could have been. Particularly with magnetic fields.
I actually thought this was a big improvement compared to Serway's books without Vuille. They finally put oscillatory motion and waves next to each other, and made numerous other improvements, especially in the presentation of electricity and magnetism.
Sometimes I feel a bit of a phony, writing a review of a textbook like this. For a book this size it's almost inconceivable that I will have read it all and completed all the exercises etc. In fact, I bought it really just to have a reference book on physics, which was reasonably up-to-date (2003.....so I guess it can be argued that it]s not really up-to-date). But at least it's much better that the physics books I had before, dated to around 1963. Or the other book I have titled "The new physics" by Paul Davies. One interesting thing that I notice is that whilst the underlying material of force, electricity, magnetism, light etc., continue more or less unchanged, subtle changes still creep into the material. I guess the change that I appreciate most is with the greater use of coloured diagrams and photos and, in the case of this book, the clarity of explanations. Confession, I haven't read all the book. I've only dipped into it in a few places ....like general relativity. Well, what can you expect with just two pages devoted to general relativity? But, I must confess to being surprised. I think the authors have done an incredible job in the two pages of distilling much of the essence of general relativity. And one thing that I've never seen before in a book of this nature is the section 1.9....setting out a general problem solving strategy for physics. Really very useful...and I don't think I was ever given such a strategy when I did physics at high school and university. The structure of the book is interesting; 1. Mechanics 2. Thermodynamics 3. Vibrations and waves. 4. Electricity and magnetism 5. Light and optics 6. Modern physics...relativity, quantum physics, atomic physics, nuclear physics, elementary particles.
I thought that they might have started with the modern physics but it all hangs together in a reasonably logical sequence. (Though one might argue that studying light and electricity before studying the photon and the electron is a bit back-to front). My version is second-hand and the section on mechanics is thoroughly worked over in the previous owner's own hand. I always find it extraordinary that notations like this are always most intense at the start of the book and inevitably drop off later in the book. I guess our good intentions have their limits!. I had a look at the section on nuclear physics and found it a bit limited. One gets much better and more thorough expositions in Chemistry books...but I suppose one might expect this. Overall, quite impressed and I'll probably be dipping into it fro time to time...liked the detailed worked sample questions. Four stars from me.
REALLY bad examples, one paragraph per unit basically, had to pay, so useless that i ended up paying $100 for homework questions basically. my two science illiterate sisters could explain physics better than this textbook, which says A LOT.
There are a few chapters I did not read because we were not covering them in class. Overall a pretty good book. I like that while this is algebra based he still has high exceptions for the reader.