The objectives of this book are: to present a contemporary, modern view of classical mechanics and electromagnetism, and to offer the student a glimpse of what is going on in physics today.
This is a well-written book. Nobody is taking a class in which it is the assigned textbook anymore, but if you're looking for a reference/refresher book at big discount, or you're teaching hs physics and you'd like a personal supplement to your library for homework and test problems, this book is really good. If you want more pictures and visual representations, Young et al's University Physics is a very nice book.
Surprised that it's not popular--Such a great book
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 16 years ago
This is one of the better textbooks for introductory Physics for science majors. Halliday, Resnick and Walker's emphasizes on problem solvings; Serway's makes great balance between concepts and applications; Giancoli's is more conceptual oriented; Young and Freedman's has a lot of excellent problems and explains concepts very well; Tipler's is quite boring and concise. It's always nice to read a newly published classical physics textbook to see how the same subject is presented differently by the different authors. But since this book emphasizes the practical aspects of physics, it's probably more welcome than the others for a college level cal based introductory physics course. Get the Answer book, very helpful: 039395756X
Very Recommended
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 22 years ago
This book is great. It's a little challenging, but it's not because of the book, but the subject. P.S. A physics book cannot be outdated.
simply the best
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 22 years ago
If you want to learn basic physics including motivations for advanced concepts, this book is the one. If you gonna study physics just to get a good grade and indeed not interested in beauty of physics (in freshmen level), don't buy this book; you can try "Fundamentals of Physics". If you think the number of examples are not enough in Ohanian's book, bookstores are full of ordinary freshmen physics books icluding solved problems with colorful "drawings" and "pictures". Maybe it is the best to read Ohanian's book "very carefully" and "very detailed" and follow a second book to see more solved examples.
Highly Recommended!
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 24 years ago
I am shocked to see such lousy responses to this book. I have been using this book for two semesters in college and have had nothing but success with it. I have over 15 physics books and the most thorough and complete one is the Ohanian one. The strategy of this book is to teach physics with a calculus approach instead of a simplified version for the weak. Classical physics was developed by Newton, and he developed it using calculus, so this is the way to go if the serious student wants to learn and really understand classical physics. Also, I have encountered very few errors in this book, so if your solution doesn't agree with Ohanian's, it may be due to a mistake on your part.
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