Fundamentals of Physics, Chapters 1 - 21

More than thirty years ago, when I was an engineering student, my physics "Bible" was Halliday & Resnick, Physics for Students of Science and Engineering, 1st Edition. This is a book that has aged gracefully. While the basic physics concepts were retained, the examples have been updated in each revision to keep up with the technology advances. Now in its seventh edition since Walker started to collaborate with the previous authors, it is still one of the most enjoyable readings in elementary physics. I recommend it without reservation.

What really makes this book great is the layout and format used. With clearly indexed chapters, main in-chapter headlins, practice problems, free interactive learning on the internet, and end of chapter synopsis, this book can explain physics to anyone interested. Physics is a science that needs to be understood correctly the first time. I really would have liked this book in high school. The end of chapter problems are very difficult, but they require you to really understand the material. the writing style used is similar to the times you read those great articles and say to yourself, "why can't everything be that clear." Great for physics majors, and good for other majors. 5 Stars

Excellent book for the first year in college although it doesn't have a hell lot of information on quantum physics and practically none on general relativity. plus the solutions to half the problems are available only to instructors.

I used the previous edition but I looked at this edition and the only thing that has changed from editions is the cover, the formatting, and the reordering of the problems. It is a great book in retrospect. There were a few moments where I really disliked this book. The first half of the book was a breeze. My review of the second half (E & M) is a little mixed. I felt some of the concepts were not explained clearly enough and I spent way too much time and effor trying to figure out what was going on. Overall though the book explains things pretty thoroughly. The problems go from easy to hard. Do all the odd problems sequentially and you should be good. You don't need calculus really, but it is pretty hard to understand some of the E & M stuff without it. Optics section was rough and I spent way too much time on it. Special relativity and quantum mechanics is just a survey. The quantum and relativity part of the book doesn't really explain anything precisely and instead tries to convince the reader with qualitative arguments. The equations used are special cases with nice closed form solutions. I think the last few chapters of the book is just filler.

I have been using this book for a semester now and I think is is great, every student in my high school class has found it immensly helpful, but then again we are the smartest students in the school; several other students parents are engineers and they have kept their first edition books as a reference. Also my physics teacher is the head of the textbook committee and she has used this book for over twenty years, and most, if not all, students recieve fives on the AP exams. I don't know about the students that are badmouthing this book, maybe they just aren't meant for physics, not that I am saying they are stupid, lazy or anything of that nature...