Fundamentals of Physics,, Chapters 1-12

This is a good book, especially if you're mechanics course used parts 1 and 2 of this same series. The thing that I like about this book is that it doesn't depend on a complete knowledge of surface or line integrals, just a basic understanding of them and how to apply simple geometric cases for math simplicity. I haven't had to look elsewhere for any supplemental material on this subject with this book, and I feel confident going into a Circuit Analysis class with what I've learned.

I was in ap Physics C and I used Serway's book. That book was alright, and i got used to it. I also studied with Giancoli, Princeton Review, and Conceptual Physics. And about 3 weeks before the ap test, my teacher let me borrow his new Halliday book. This book really cleared up several concepts in mechanics. I went over a chapter every 2-3 days as my review. I don't know how the e/m section of the book is but I will be using Halliday for the fall E/m class. Either way, I think Halliday does a good job explaining concepts in Mechanics. I ended up getting a 5 on the test!

I am a graduate student in physics and I have been a teaching assistant for 3 years now at Iowa State Univesity and SUNY Stony Brook. I have taught introductory physics numerous times and I have teaching experience with this book: IT IS GREAT. It is everything that the students ever dreamed of. Every chapter has really easy to follow explanation of the fundamental theory and numerous step-by-step solved problems and examples. It also has nice boxes with general strategies for solving problems. At the end of every chapter there is an extensive collection of exercises that fit well with the material of the book.An advice for the students: Dont start doing your homework before you understand the material. I have seen it numerous times, students that have not understood what is really going on, trying to solve the problems. Big mistake. Open the Halliday-Ressnick book, study the material first and then solve the problems. There is a general fear among the students to go through the theory of the book (any book) first and spend some quality time trying to absorb it. They just think that physics is too difficult of a subject and that they wont understand a thing. For that reason they just use their collection of formulae and blindly try to apply it in order to solve the problems.I believe that Halliday-Resnick breaks this barrier, their treatment of the subject shows how much they care for the student and they do their best to explain things in the easiest possible way.Something that really breaks the ice is a photograph at the beginning of each chapter that shows an everyday phenomenon that will be treated in the course of that particular chapter, like the picture showin a young girl up in the mountain, with her hair floating up in the air! (a dangerous situation as explained in the book), or the explosion of the Hinderburg and also the picture of a man inside a car that is being hit by a lightning without harming the man inside!As an undergraduate in physics I used this book too for my introductory physics courses so I also have read it from the student point of view. I believe that it does a superb job clarifyng the fundamental principles of physics without difficult or "intellectual-kind" of explanations. It goes step by step building up until you understand it. I also used this book extensively to prepare for the Physics subject GRE test and it helped a lot. I still keep it in my office and frequently look for things that I have forgotten. I totaly recommend it.As for the mathematical prerequisites of the book that a previous reviewer has commented on I would say that you need to how to solve simple integrals (nothing more dramatic than a polyonym or a trigonometric function or 1/r and 1/r^2) and also it would be nice to know the meaning of a derivative as the rate of change of a function with respect to some variable. Nothing more. Enjoy!P.S.1 I am familiar with the 4th and 5th edition. P.S.2 There exists a

I used this book for my general physics course in USA. Since my native language is not English, I had to spend a lot of time to read through this book. But, compared to other textbooks, this book makes it easy to read even for a student like me who has language problem. The reason is that this book explains the concepts in clear manner and gives us further understanding by the immediate sample problems. I found this very refreshing. I can immediately check my understanding and never get bored in this way. I know other books that just explain the concepts for pages and pages...until I forget what I started with and fall asleep. Their end chapter problems are very good. many of them are interesting to solve.

This book covers all of basic physics very well. The prose is clear and the problem sets incredibly thorough. Problems vary from being a simple extension to what is described in the chapter to some extremely challenging problems that require some original thinking. Not an easy read at all points but completely worth it