Modern Physics for Scientists and Engineers

Product was much cheeper than college bookstore and the codition was very nice. It came fast and in good packaging. Seller responded to concerns very fast.

This textbook was used in the modern physics class I took during college. It is excellent because it doesn't just derive the fundamental equations and move on leaving the student to find their significance elsewhere. There is just as much text as mathematical steps to ensure the student has a good understanding. The problems are tough, but really well worded.

I used Modern Physics for Scientists and Engineers for a sophomore-level modern physics course in an engineering curriculum. I liked the textbook. The authors' approach seemed to stress the experimental bases for modern theories of relativity and of atomic theory/quantum mechanics. I really preferred this approach to that of other textbooks -- postulating the governing laws of each and then proceeding to derive their consequences -- because it made the subjects less abstract. While another reviewer has criticized the book's figures and its end-of-chapter exercises, I found the figures that present experimental data very helpful, and I thought the exercises were just fine -- many prompted the reader to work through derivations rather than to perform "plug-and-chug" computations. In addition, I enjoyed reading the biographical vignettes about historically important scientists that dot the book's chapters, although some readers might find these a bit corny, or a bit distracting. While other textbooks treat relativity and quantum mechanics in a more detailed and sophisticated way, I think this book covers those topics adequately, with a level of depth and with mathematics (i.e. vector calculus and differential equations) appropriate for an undergraduate in engineering or the physical sciences.

A clear, historical and contamporary book