Physics

I used Giancoli as my primary text in high school, and found it to be a superb text. I think those complaining of a lack of worked problems are missing the entire point of this text and the essence of studying physics. This book is about understanding physics principles and the equations you use to solve physics problems. You will find that with this understanding (certainly provided by this excellent text), the need for mindless ploughing through physics problems is lost. You will be able to solve physics problems on the basis of your conceptual understanding of the problems. So many students rely on rote learning and repetition by doing hundreds of questions. Sure, you might be able to attack similar problems for the next week or so, but as soon as you stop practicing, the skill is lost. True mastery of physics comes from appreciation of principles, not mere recognition of patterns in problems...this text will help you achieve such an appreciation.

As a physics teacher, I have chosen this physics textbook for my 10th-12th grade gifted students in my highschool. Rarely, the level goes little beyond my students, however with my support and additional work, they can easily get it. Although my students have English as a foreign language, they say they find the language of the book easy to read and study. From the physics teacher point of view, the book is very well structured. When I read some reviews about the book, which were so negative, I thought there might be two reasons for the case: One: the book is beyond their level, basically it does not fit them (so, they merely should not use it). Second: they have a low-quality physics teacher. Any textbook does not mean so much by itself... However, there are a few negative aspects of the book. Examples are very easy and not challenging. They do not provide enough experience/background for level 3 questions. Conceptual examples are not enough compared to the number of conceptual questions at the end of each chapter. Graphics are not studied enough in kinematics chapters.

I am a high school physics teacher with 20 years of experience. In this time span I have read and taught from over a dozen physics texts. Giancoli's text is the best written and most comprehensive textbook that I have encountered! I just wish I would have had such an interesting and well developed text to read when I was a student in introductory physics. I have used the text in standard physics courses, IBSL & IBHL courses and my students generally remark favorably about the style and level of difficulty of the text. Giancoli has tried to make the book assessible to less capable science students while retaining a challenging and comprehensive style for serious science students. His text, however, should not be used as an ancillary source for students struggling with physics.

I am a senior pre-dental student, and my general physics course used this book. The chapters were set up well and the material was presented in a logical fashion. Summaries at the end of each chapter were helpful, and the accomanying web sit really increased the leaning opportunities. The only negative I found was in some of the Problems at the end of the chaptesr. There were few but some of the problems were quite hard to solve from only the reading of the text. Overall I would highly recommend this book though.

This book is essential for the serious physics student. Not for the weak-of-heart, this latest edition combines the classic "Giancoli," comprehensive style with updated pictures and graphics. I would never recommend this book for beginning students without a solid background in trigonometry and calculus. However, I would never recommend any other book to anyone who wants to rise to the real challenges and rigor that the field of physics mandates.