Physics Textbooks

[Kyptonite]

What do you consider to be the "best" introductory calculus-based physics textbook? I've taken an Honors Physics course which used the highly pedestrian algebra-based Holt Physics book and am greatly interested in learning more physics.

[Dr Transport]

Halliday and Resnick, not the versions with Krane, i.e. Editions 1 or 2 only.......

[robphy]

When I was a TA for an honors sequence, they used [over the span of 3 quarters]:
Kleppner and Kolenkow "An Introduction to Mechanics",
Purcell "Electricity and magnetism (Berkeley physics course v.2)",
and [if I recall correctly] French "Vibrations and Waves".

[DarkEternal]

the series robphy posted is the one that MIT uses. K&K and purcell are used in the honors physics classes. K&K is probably not the best introduction to the material, especially for self-teaching, but the problems are excellent and there are a lot of examples. i found the purcell to be pretty good and readable, with some good problems. a good supplement can be found at my class's website at http://web.mit.edu/8.022/www/ - my prof's notes and extra problems are excellent. before attending MIT, i had never done any calculus-based physics, and found the K&K a bit hard to keep up with. second semester, i found the E&M class which used purcell to be much easier. however, the prof was definitely a big factor, so take that with a grain of salt. and having used those two books, i decided on becoming a physics and math major, so take that as an indicator of their great treatment of the subject matter. as for the french, that's what i will be using next year, so we'll see about that i guess?

[graphic7]

I've been using a text by Gasioschwicz (sp.). Personally, I don't care much for the book. Lots of worked examples, however. This text is calculus based, by the way.

[Sting]

I learned a lot of intro physics from Serway.

Avoid Tipler.