Serway Physics for Scientists & Engineers

[member 392791]

What do you all think of this textbook? It seems to me to be a lot of plug in chug to get formulas without an explanation for the motivation and just a lot of algebra

 

[genericusrnme]

When I was starting my studies I checked it out, can't say I liked it that much either.

 

[Centaur]

We are using it in my physics classes. To me it is super verbose with the weirdest examples that don't really give you an idea on doing other problems of the topic.

A lot of people on the forum seems to like the book by Halliday: Fundamentals of Physics.

Also have a look at the different books in the library that fits your way of learning.

 

[autodidude]

I'm using it at the moment, not great but still usable. Only using it cause I lack the mathematical background for K&K's mechanics book. I think most standard first-year textbooks are like that...though I've read through bits of the 7th edition of Sears and Zermansky's 'University Physics' and liked their explanations better than Serway's text, short but clear (e.g. in Serway's book, the thermodynamics part wasn't clear at all, S&Z's text was shorter for that part but made much more sense)

 

[Meadman23]

I'd add a plus 1 to Halliday to. The Serway book pissed me off a lot because I felt like it tried to sound as mega smart as possible when explaining simple concepts like what capcitance is dependent on for example...

 

[JJHK]

I've read through the Mechanics section for both Serway and Halliday, and I got to say I like the Halliday text better. I felt that the overall presentation of Halliday was better