Is Halliday & Resnick Good?

[kishtik]

This may sound strange to you because its sooo popular, but is it good?

Thanks.

 

[Moneer81]

Yeah I used that book and I liked it ... its clear and has lots of examples, and I think you can also buy a student manual for it. I borrowed it to a friend and he took off to Iowa with it and never returned it back! urghhh
but yeah, recommended book.

 

[Brad Barker]

i prefer halliday, resnick, and krane to halliday, resnick, and walker.

 

[Knavish]

what are the significant differences between the two?

 

[Dr Transport]

I prefer Halliday and Resnik the best, after other authors got on the authorship line the difference became really nothing more than color photos and diagrams.

In any event, if it wasn't a good text, it would not be in print for 40 years and used consistantly at many major universities.

 

[Brad Barker]

walker's book is more colorful, but the organization in parts is clunky.

also, the text in krane is better, i think.

 

[PrinceOfDarkness]

I think HR-Krane goes more in detail when it comes to derivations and explanations, especially a few waves chapters that I compared, and HR-Walker is more inclined towards problem solving.

Nonetheless, they both are standard introductory texts and I especially like HR-Walker for problem solving. I think I will be going through it once before I take my GRE Physics next year as it has plenty of problems, from the very easy to the quite challenging!

 

[kishtik]

Thanks for the replies.

 

[Alpha2005]

Hee that's the only book I have for now for my PRE-U and I would say it's great! At first I don't even know this book is that popular :)
*Non-US

 

[quantumdude]

Halliday and Resnick was a better book when it first came out, but since that time it has been dumbed-down so as to be in step with the overall dumbing down of math and science curricula across the US. For instance either the 1st or 2nd edition (possibly both) had Maxwell's equations in both differential and integral form, but by the time the 3rd edition hit the scene the differential forms had disappeared.

But even the current edition of Halliday, Resnick and Co. is better than the competition. I'd give Serway and Tipler honorable mentions, though.

 

[Pseudo Statistic]

This may sound strange to you because its sooo popular, but is it good?
Thanks.

I can only judge the extended 7th edition.. (Halliday, Resnick, Walker)
I think it's pretty great; it shows what's needed in terms of deriving formulas, it provides key ideas for each example problem, it has checkpoints, real-life applications (in the examples, blah) and loads more.
Only problem I've had with it is that sometimes I'd have to read over something twice before I'd properly get it... but maybe it's because I try to skim through all of the texts I read.
If you were to slowly progress through the book though, I don't think you'd have many problems. :D

 

[Erzeon]

Is this book suitable for a high school student? I'm on holidays and would like to do some reading on physics. I still got one more year of high schoo left though, so I won't be going to uni next year.

 

[Integral]

Is this book suitable for a high school student? I'm on holidays and would like to do some reading on physics. I still got one more year of high schoo left though, so I won't be going to uni next year.

What are your math skills? You will need some calculus to get much from H&R.

 

[Erzeon]

http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/vce/studies/mathematics/methods/pastexams/03mmexam1.pdf

that link is the exam for my maths subject I just did for this year. It's the final school year exam for 2003 but its basically the same as this years. It's basically calculus (derivatives of log, sin, cos etc and using those derivatives to find max/min of a problem. Also antiderivative to find area between two graphs or area enclosed by graph and the x-axis and y axis). Basic trig eg sin(pi/3) = sin(60) = (root 3)/2.

Thats basically it, also a bit of complex and vector stuff. Although my skills in them are very bad but I could look back and relearn the complex numbers and vector stuff. Its basically factorising complex numbers (and that z = r cis (theta), with vectors its multiplacation, addition, division and subtration of vectors).

If "Fundamentals of physics" wouldn't be understandable(if that's a word) to me, could you please recommend another physics book?