How's Tipler's Physics for Scientists and Engineers (Calculus based)?

[anonymity]

So?

(Mainly concerned about the E&M portion, but id like to hear about the mechanics portion too)

 

[edgepflow]

The versions issued starting since the early 90s are very good in my opinion.

 

[brocks]

Probably 90% of major university freshman physics classes use one of Serway, Young and Freedman, Halliday and Resnik, Giancoli, Knight, or Tipler. All are good; all cover approximately the same material at approximately the same level, and all put out new editions that don't change very much. So I always recommend that you go to Ebay or Amazon and find older editions for five or ten bucks, and buy as many as you like. Each author explains things a bit differently and with different emphasis, so if you're having trouble understanding something, having two or three different authors will help you more than reading the same text over and over, even if it's the best of the lot. Almost everything you learn in your first year will be stuff that hasn't changed in a hundred years, so any book that uses SI units is new enough. That means anything from the 1970's or so. A lot of people think those texts are actually better than today's --- not as watered down.

Also, don't overlook all the free texts on the web. Ben Crowell has both a calculus and non-calculus version, and there are innumerable sets of lecture notes and even videos on university sites, notably MIT's OCW site.

The standard texts for super duper honors classes, that even most MIT students find too tough, are Kleppner for Mechanics, and Purcell (Berkeley series) for EM. But if you are going to major in physics, you will be taking more advanced classes in both subjects anyway, so IMO there is no need to start with the hardest texts; any of those in the first paragraph are plenty hard enough, if you try all the challenge problems.

Good luck.