College Physics Workbook

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Miina Hunker

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Aug 3, 2024, 5:45:13 PM8/3/24

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The top-selling college physics textbooks for beginners include "Fundamentals of Physics" by David Halliday, Robert Resnick, and Jearl Walker, "University Physics" by Hugh D. Young and Roger A. Freedman, and "Concepts of Physics" by H.C. Verma.

Yes, there are many online resources for college physics textbooks, including e-books, interactive websites, and lecture notes. Some popular websites for online physics textbooks include OpenStax, Khan Academy, and Physics Classroom.

When choosing a college physics textbook, you should consider the level of difficulty, the approach and style of the author, the cost, and any additional online resources or study guides that may be included.

Yes, there are several recommended physics textbooks for self-study, such as "Physics for Scientists and Engineers" by Douglas C. Giancoli and "The Feynman Lectures on Physics" by Richard Feynman. These books are known for their clear explanations and engaging writing style.

Yes, there are physics textbooks specifically designed for non-science majors, such as "Conceptual Physics" by Paul G. Hewitt and "Physics: Principles with Applications" by Douglas C. Giancoli. These textbooks focus on conceptual understanding and real-world applications, rather than complex mathematical equations.

There could be a variety of reasons why you consider your college physics book to be "horrible." Some common reasons include outdated information, confusing explanations, or lack of practice problems. It's important to identify the specific issues you have with the book in order to find suitable supplements.

It's important to consider your learning style and the specific areas you need help with when choosing supplements. Some options include practice workbooks, online tutorials, or supplemental textbooks. You may also want to consult with your professor or other students for recommendations.

Yes, there are many free resources available online such as Khan Academy, YouTube channels, and websites with practice problems and explanations. These can be a great supplement to your college physics book and can help clarify difficult concepts.

This ultimately depends on your personal preference. While supplements can provide additional help and clarification, it's important to still refer to your college physics book for assigned readings and material that will be covered on exams. Supplements should be used as a supplement, not a replacement.

To make the most out of using supplements, it's important to actively engage with the material and not just rely on them as a crutch. Take notes, complete practice problems, and review the material regularly. It's also helpful to discuss the material with your peers or seek help from your professor if needed.

The book can continue to be the primary text for introductory college physics courses, even in its present form. Of course, updates such as references to the latest physics and astronomy news will be welcome and make the text fresh and more compelling. The html format of the book makes such updates modular and easy to implement in a distributed manner.

The book is written clearly and simply, in a manner that is appropriate for its target audience. But there are some weak points in the text. For example, in section 7.3, Example 7.7 can be explained much more clearly by invoking the conservation of mechanical energy. But this principle is only introduced in the _next_ section, 7.4. Example 7.7 really belongs in section 7.4.

The book also lacks polish and excitement, mainly in its figures. This may seem to be trivial issue, but for students who don't care for physics in the first place, this can unfortunately dampen their already limited enthusiasm for the subject.

The book is organized logically and clearly. In cases when the instructor wants to cover topics in a different order, e.g., introduce the kinematics of uniform circular motion before Newton's laws of motion, the modular html format of the book makes it easy to direct students to different sections of the book.

This book is an excellent open resource, especially when competing textbooks from the big publishing houses can cost in the vicinity of $200. I have been using it for four years, and plan to continue with it. The book has a lot of potential for improvement, though. For example, as an html book, the figures can be dynamic and interactive with sliders to vary parameters etc. The embedded phet simulations do help, but this idea can be developed and make the book much better than even expensive, printed texts from big publishers.

This is a good Physics textbook for Algebra based Physics courses taught in colleges. This textbook covers almost every topic for two semester Physics I and Physics II courses. Physics instructor can use this Open Textbook as an option for their Physics textbook if they do not want students to purchase books. I personally use this open textbook and recommend to students to read chapters or look for examples problems when I explain some topics in Physics. Sometimes, I also use this textbook in my courses. It is a great alternative to college Physics paid textbooks if anyone wants to use it.

All chapters and topics are shown clearly in the right order in table of contents. Each unit and chapter follow the flow connection. Everything is explained very clearly with examples and people can use any chapter in order if they want and, but I would prefer going in the order of chapters as written in the table of content.

This textbook is a good textbook for algebra-based Physics. It focuses good examples related to topics covered for two semester Physics courses in colleges. It shows good flow between topics and good connection of concepts of Physics to the real-world applications. This textbook is good for anyone even for the beginners. I use this textbook in some of my classes and students like it.

If I were to nitpick, some of the pictures such as instruments, vehicles etc. are old and not the best quality. This gives the text an unattractive, dated feel. But this is a purely cosmetic issue that is irrelevant to the teaching of the subject matter.

Modules in the book are well constructed. This allows the instructor to cover topics in a different order from that in the text. The modular structure makes it straightforward to assign sections for student reading.

The book is less attractive than competing texts from the major publishers, mainly because images are of lower quality. But this is a purely cosmetic issue (albeit, one that may bother students a lot), and does not get in the way of teaching the subject at hand.

I wish that, wherever possible, this text and the calculus-based Openstax texts University Physics (vol. 1-3) would mirror each other. Of course, these two texts are written by different authors. But if they followed the same notation wherever possible, it would make the instructors' life much easier while teaching both courses simultaneously.

One example is the right hand rule specifying the magnetic force on a moving charge in an external magnetic field. The two texts use superficially different definitions, which are actually equivalent to each other. Neither definition is better than the other, so why not allow students and instructors the ability to switch between texts?

This text covers all of the topics that we cover in our two semester algebra/trigonometry-based physics course. I was pleased to see that it separates fluid statics and fluid dynamics into two separate chapters as this often times confuses students. There were actually some topics covered that we don't have in our current text. I can't say that we will necessarily then cover ALL of these topics, but having them there for additional information is good.

I was unable to find any instances where information was inaccurate or contained errors. The book contains a good number of sample problems for students to examine in each chapter. The end of chapter problems are sufficient too. I was surprised to not see answers to odd problems in the back of the book, but instead these can be located in a separate student solutions manual that is also free to students.

Most college physics texts don't need much "updating" for general/introductory courses. Even so, being that the text is online it would actually be easier to update than more traditional texts where you have to wait for the next edition. I don't see this text as being anything that would need to be updated, although there certainly could be room for improvement.

I wasn't able to find any examples where terminology would be any more confusing than our current text. Physics traditionally contains quite a bit of vocabulary that students are not familiar with and/or recognize. I don't find this to be any different than any other text that does its best to explain the concepts clearly.

All of the chapters follow a similar pattern. This will make it easier for students when they move from one chapter to the next to know what to expect. Every section has at least one example problem to help students make sense of the concepts and formulas that are presented. Every chapter begins with a common picture that helps students to recognize where these abstract terms are available in their everyday life, has learning objectives per section, and ends the chapter with a glossary, section summary, conceptual questions per section, and lastly problems and exercises per section.

This was one thing that I was concerned with as the book does follow a slightly different approach to some topics than what we have in our current text. I will say that in one of those instances, I actually prefer the approach in this text (angular momentum is included with rotational motion in Chapter 10, rather than with linear momentum in Chapter 8) whereas the other is the placement of optics (we begin our second semester electricity/magnetism course with optics, whereas this text would include it later in the semester if you take the chapters in order). However, in looking it over, I don't see any problem with moving those chapters on optics (25, 26, and 27) earlier in the course. This text seems to allow for some movement of topics depending on what you prefer and how you prefer to introduce topics.