Understanding Physics

By Colm O'Sullivan and Michael Mansfield

Book Overview

Understanding Physics - Second edition is a comprehensive, yet compact, introductory physics textbook aimed at physics undergraduates and also at engineers and other scientists taking a general physics course. Written with today's students in mind, this text covers the core material required by an introductory course in a clear and refreshing way. A second colour is used throughout to enhance learning and understanding. Each topic is introduced from first principles so that the text is suitable for students without a prior background in physics. At the same time the book is designed to enable students to proceed easily to subsequent courses in physics and may be used to support such courses.

Mathematical methods (in particular, calculus and vector analysis) are introduced within the text as the need arises and are presented in the context of the physical problems which they are used to analyse. Particular aims of the book are to demonstrate to students that the easiest, most concise and least ambiguous way to express and describe phenomena in physics is by using the language of mathematics and that, at this level, the total amount of mathematics required is neither large nor particularly demanding.

'Modern physics' topics (relativity and quantum mechanics) are introduced at an earlier stage than is usually found in introductory textbooks and are integrated with the more 'classical' material from which they have evolved. This book encourages students to develop an intuition for relativistic and quantum concepts at as early a stage as is practicable.

The text takes a reflective approach towards the scientific method at all stages and, in keeping with the title of the text, emphasis is placed on understanding of, and insight into, the material presented.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0470746378
• ISBN13: 9780470746370
• Release Date: January 2011
• Publisher: Wiley
• Length: 675 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 8.4" x 10.9"

Customer Reviews

Not a wasted word and that's good

This is one of those rare physics books where every word has the physical information of ten pages of american textbooks. I must confess, I DETEST american introductory physics textbooks such as the ones written by Giancoli, Serway or Freeman something. All those books have three things in common. 1. They're big and fat and spend about 50 pages per chapter. 2. They are written from a purely commercial viewpoint instead of trying to write a decent textbook. When was the last time you saw one of these titles that didn't come with a student solutions manual, study guide and a ton of other crap meant to make spend your annual bookbudget on a single title. 3. They all give answers to only odd numbered exercises which run into more than hundred. After spending all that money on a book the least they could do is give me the ability to check the answer after spending all that time and energy trying to solve it. And this is where understanding phsyics comes to the rescue. It's thinner than all introductory physics textbooks you ever saw. The exercises never number more than 20 and each and every one of them is meant to teach you something useful instead of rehashing skills you learned in high school, which brings me my next point. This textbook actually assumes you had physics in high school. It picks up right where you left at graduation and builds on it. In less then 740 pages it teaches you stuff most 1200 page textbooks never come by. Stuff you thought you would only get in your second or third year is explained in a way you can understand. Best of all, this book is meant to fill the heads of students instead of the wallets of the authors. There are no student solutions manuals, study guides, or other useless nonsense meant only to line the pockets of the writers. All the answers to exercises are given. Like one reviewer said this book only uses black blue and gray, which is a good thing. You're paying for all those pretty pictures, and in the end they don't advance your understanding anyway. Besides all those colours make the pages busy and difficult for me to concentrate. To sum up, buy this book if you want to learn real physics instead of relearning what you learned in high school.

Excellent book

A great book, I just love it!

An excellent book

This is a super book. I found it particularly useful in refreshing my memory!

Concise and easy to understand

I find this book to be a terrific reference for those who are new to the field as well as for the seasoned physics student. It takes an unorthodox pedagogic approach which is very effective, giving a comprehendible and surprisingly comprehensive presentation. It is helpful both as a quick reference for finding equations and definitions of terms and as a text to read from beginning to end.