Physics with Modern Physics for Scientists and Engineers

I have used 3 seperate introductory textbooks for physics - (1) "Physics for Scientists and Engineers" by Giancoli (2) "Essentials of Universtiy Physics" by Wolfson and Ayars (3) "Fundementals of Physics" by Halliday, Resnick, and Walker I used Giancoli for two semesters of AP Physics, Wolfson for my first semester of college physics, and Halliday for my second semester of college physics. I am also currently working through the "modern physics" section of Giancoli in preparation for a course in modern physics. I can tell you that all the books are about the same, with subtle differences. So ignore the morons who say things like "this is the worst book ever it doesn't explain anything blah blah I'm dumb." Giancoli(1) seems to take the most mathematical approach, reaching physical conclusions from derived equation, whereas Halliday(3) tends to take a more physical approach, explaining the physics and then deriving the equations. Wolfson(2) seems to be somewhere inbetween these approaches. Which is better is a matter of preference and surprise. As primarly a math student, I was suprised to find I enjoyed Halliday's physical approach more. There seem to be more problems in Giancoli than in the other two. And Giancoli offers some more difficult problems than the other two. Giancolli and Wolfson also offer a large number of "general problems" at the end of the problems section, which help to tie together the different sections. I should note here for students planning to use any of these books that the calculationless questions at the end of the chapter are a very useful step toward the more difficult problems. Don't ignore them, they sort of train you to think more critically rather than paging through your book for an equation to plug numbers into. One advantage of Halliday is the "checkpoint" questions placed at the end of each section. These checkpoints ought to be particularly useful to beginning students who either have trouble monitoring their level of concentration or gauging their level of understanding. This way you won't get to the end of the chapter and say "What the h*** did I just read!" Wolfson is nice because it comes in three seperate volumes, so you don't have to carry around 1000+ pages of back pain every MWF. All 3 of these books offer a section in modern physics in recent editions, so that should not be an issue. If you are planning on doing the two semesters of physics, and then a semester on modern physics, it's probably not a bad idea to shell out the extra cash for the modern physics chapters so that you can get a head start over the summer. All in all I'd say get whatever book your department requires and don't complain because all introductory physics books are about the same. If you have a choice get Giancoli if you like solving difficult problems, get Halliday if you think you will enjoy more physical explainations or have trouble monitoring your concentration or understanding. And get Wolfson if you'd like

I am a senior physics major and I can assure you, if you are looking for an amazing general reference book, this is the book to get. It is essentially broken into 3 major sections. Newtonian Mechanics, Electricity and Magnetism, and Modern Physics. It has introductory topics on One and Two Dimensional Kinematics, Newtonian Mechanics, Optics, Electricity and Magnetism (including Maxwell's Equations), Thermodynamics, Special Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Nuclear physics, Astrophysics, and Cosmology. I first purchased this book about 4 or 5 years ago for an entry level "University Physics" course. At most Universities this book is used for two semesters. It is a calculus based physics book, so if you have not yet had at least Calculus 1 this book will not be very useful for you if you are going to try to work out the problems. By the time you get to the second half of the book I really recommend at least having Calculus 2. With all of the interesting topics available to read about there are some people that might believe that this book can be read as a popular physics book and just ignore the math. I do not at all recommend that. Although the topics are throughly explained, reading this book and ignoring the math would be an injustice. In every class that I have had in physics since purchasing this book I have consistently gone back to reference it for help. This book is second to none and I believe that there are two books necessary to make it in physics (1) Douglas Giancoli "Physics for Scientists and Engineers" 3rd Edition (2) James Stewart "Calculus" 5th Edition. Just one last thing, make sure that if you are considering purchasing this book note that there are two versions of the 3rd edition. One contains a Modern Physics section and one does not. I highly recommend you get the one with the Modern Physics section. All in all this book is the absolute best and I see myself using all through graduate school.

As a physics hobbyist, I've used textbooks by Halliday and Resnick, Hugh D. Young, Sanny and Moebs, Isadore Lerner, and others. Each one has a different style and appeals to different types of learners. We're fortunate to have so many to choose from. Wolfson and Pasachoff (Third Edition) develops the subject of physics more slowly and carefully compared with other textbooks, while still being comprehensive and calculus-based. It is ideal for students who find it a bit more difficult to build physical intuition on their own, but could be seen as "simplistic" by students who don't find undergraduate physics to be as challenging. Despite this, all the "meat" of physics is included, along with plenty of challenging problems at the end of each chapter. Books like Wolfson and Pasachoff are important because they tend to encourage a wider range of students to continue their studies in physics. Some of the other textbooks tend to "weed out" students who otherwise might go on to be fine scientists or engineers. So kudos to Wolfson and Pasachoff for a comprehensive yet kinder and gentler introduction to physics.

When i started to use Serway's text for AP physics C, i felt that's a great book. But as i progress, i found Serway's text is so vague and lacked rigor, problem solving, solutions, detailed proof, as appropriete for the level of AP physics C. After using Serway's text for self study for two month, i switched to giancoli's text by friend's recommandation, and i found that it was much better than serway's text in respect that more problem solving, detailed proof are included. I regret that i wrote i review for Serway's text so good. if you are studying calculus-based physics, i recommand you also buy an outline.

In all fairness to the book, it's not as bad as I made it out to be below. It is a little upsetting to be given tons of equations without any proofs. But the proofs really are beyond the scope of the book. I've looked at other books of the same level since I wrote the original review, and this one has turned out to be better than all the others. The book would've been better if they mentioned a few extra things like how its treatment of electricity and magnetism should be taken as only working in an absolute frame, and is only an approximation to the full treatment.All in all, this book covers so many topics, that no matter what physics you are doing in the future, you'll always be able to find some information in here that won't be mentioned in your other book.It covers everything you need to know for a first mechanics course, a course in waves and modern physics, a first course in electricity and magnetism, plus a lot more that is never touched in class. Calculus is not needed for the mechanics course, but it is used in the book. If you know calculus, then you'll benefit. If you don't, you can skip the "calculus equations", and the rest of the mechanics part of the book will still all be comprehensible.