Customer Reviews:
 Great shape April 14, 2010
Lydia M.
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book came on time and in great condition. Very few markings that I have seen so far.
 Terrible January 11, 2009
AJ (Oceanside, CA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This book is no good if you are learning it for the first time. It made my class so difficult, and I usually catch on to this stuff pretty easily. My dad is a physicist and I called him in frustration so many times. The problem with this book is that it doesn't explain anything. It assumes you know the subject already. The homework problems require you to take big leaps from what is covered in the text. If you need values for certain materials and their properties they are either not in the book, requiring you to search on the internet, or they are in some small side example. I can't even say how hard this book made my semester. I spent hours on 1-2 homework problems because the information I needed to answer it simply wasn't in the book. I bought the Knight textbook a bit into the semester, and it literally cut my study time to about a quarter of what I was spending. I know that my classmates all agree about this book. So if your professor wants to use this book, buy the Knight physics book to supplement your studying. It will help a ton.
Walk through the fog September 12, 2009
Matthew Ralston
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book was required for my class, so I had to buy it. It is very confusing to understand with very few examples. The book leaves out alot and assumes you already know the important details. You will spend hours trying to understand the chapter and the homework takes even longer with completly uncertain results. If you buy this book get ready to enter the fog.
ZERO STARS IF I COULD! The best way to ruin your GPA! March 9, 2009
roo2d2 (OKC)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Allow me to preface that I am a 3.5 GPA engineering student who enjoys and does well in calculus and physics. This review is based on my experience in Engineering Physics I & II:
Ahem,
If your professor uses this book, or any others in this abysmal "Six Ideas" series, DROP THE CLASS AND GET YOUR MONEY BACK! This book sends me into a fit of four lettered frustration. This book literally makes me too angry to learn. Please, please, please for the love of all that is holy, do not take any class that uses this piece of crap for a textbook. If you're at a 4 year university and this is the only book that any of your physics classes use, take your physics classes at a local JuCo. Who cares if the JuCo is further away! The money/time you'll save by not bombing your physics class and lowering your GPA will be well worth it.
E & M is not the most intuitive concept, especially when you are first exposed to it, but a book this bad is beyond explanation. Examples: Formulas that appear in the beginning of the chapter do not match the formulas given later in the text. Things like k, Q, rho, epsilon not, mu not are never fully explained but just left for you to hunt down in the conversion tables. Mag (B) fields are never left in Teslas (as is customary) but turned into a convoluted mess because the author mistakenly believes that by multiplying them by a speed of light constant, he will make them easier to understand (in terms of B-bar). Lastly, (and most frustrating), there are NO ANSWERS in the back of this or any books in this series. It's like this book is a half-written rough draft. I can only imagine how bad this "book" was before the revision.
I have literally learned more from kahnacademy and MIT E&M lecture videos on youtube and they are free!
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