s="h3color tiny">This review is from: College Physics (4th Edition) (Hardcover)

I have used at least 4 different College Physics textbooks during the past 10 years I have been teaching. This one is the worst of the lot.This is a non-calculus based text used for biology, geology, chem and other science majors, but not for physics majorsI find the conceptual explanations confusing and the wording awkward.The multimedia applets are of inferior quality (compared to those available with the Serway textbook)The text and solutions are rife with typos and blatant errors.I have gone through 4 chapters completely and done EVERY problem at the end of the chapter, and found 3 -4 errors for each chapter just in the end of chapter problems.Examples within the text sometimes refer to material that has never been covered or skip important steps.For example: I have had confused students come to see me many times when they do not understand where the answers came from for problems that are supposed to be fully worked out...Read more

For someone looking to get an overview of basic physics, this book is great. The problems in the back of each chapter start out easy then become more and more challenging. In several chapters there are photos of some physics instructors doing experiments we all want to do; one of the best is an experiment where someone is sitting in a chair holding a very large CO2 fire extinguisher and... rockets off! It does a very good job of explaining Newton's laws. (every action has an equal and opposite reaction) If you purchase this text, make sure to get the associated study guide. It not only provides a review of each chapter, it goes through step by step problem solving on slected odd numbered problems. The only caveat is that some of the wording is vague; there was an attempt to explain physics without calculus. As a result, some subjects must be taken on faith. If life sciences is your major then this text does a great job of explaining physics.

Physics is a difficult subject. This text does an admirable job of making a difficult subject easier.There are advantages and disadvantages to disallowing the writer to use calculus in writing the material. Some formulas require calculus to derive and so must be either taken on faith as true, or the derivations looked up in a calculus based test. Fortunately the times when this issue comes up are few enough to not seriously hamper the flow of the book.This book may be read as a first book on Physics. I strongly recommend the book Conceptual Physics by Hewitt for a running start at the subject.Members of the lay public interested in physics may read both of these texts, as they are at introductory level and contains material on classical as well as modern physics.The units are in SI ( metric ) which simplifies the math.The Wilson and Buffa text has Color photos of natural phenomenon and situations that illustrate the physics under discussion. There...Read more