physics

I am a college student who have taken basic calculus courses. I was extremely suprised that the book can give such a full account for every topics, from the classical, fundamental one, to the newest technological development. It don't just derive formula, but also emphasize the physical importance of the theory behind. The book is certainly better than many "First Aid Exam Kit" available in the market, if you really want to understand the theory of Physics. In another word, as entitled, the book is dedicated for potential scientists and engineers.
It seems that the writers try to illustrate all the theory in an enjoyable way. And this, to a certain extent, make the taste of the book a bit boring. And if you don't have much interest at Physics, it would be a nightmare to read it.
I also thinks that the odd number answer of the book's question is the worst point of the book. And for the prospective owner of the book, I would recommend them to do the excercises of the book. It's because some of the sub-topics of the book is embeded in some of its excercies. But after all, it is the best Physics book I have ever read.

I had the author of this book as my professor for Physics. We used this textbook and it was just really, a waste of our money. The textbook did nothing to help us learn physics in any way at all. It just confuses you more when the author takes the most complicated path to teach you a concept when it could be explained so much simpler. I had already taken a college-level physics class before this, and there are so many other better textbooks out there than this one. I have to say that they do have colorful and detailed illustrations which sometimes help, but the wording needs much help.

Of course I haven't read every textbook ever written; the title of this review is hyperbolic (in the semantic sense).

But seriously, I don't know what the target audience for this book is, but it couldn't possibly be undergraduates trying to learn physics. The following are the flaws which come to mind most immediately:

1) Definitions of terms are moving targets. No term that is defined in this book is used in the same sense twice. You can expect at least three "definitions" of a term over the course of one chapter, and even more over the course of several chapters. This has made it very difficult for me to retain any of the information presented.
2) It's extremely cluttered. Ninety-nine percent of the book is devoted to very specific problems rather than giving lucid explanations of general principles which would lead to a clear understanding of the general principles. It's very difficult to solve specific problems without a clear understanding of the general principles that can be applied to achieve a solution.
3) The author's derivations of equations are frequently very confusing. My confusion generally is caused by one of two things:
a) very large steps are frequently made without any explanation of what math was being done to get from one line to the next.
b) typographical errors are plentiful, so I never know if it's some math that I haven't done between the steps or if it's actually an error.
In the end I'm frequently immobilized by baffling conclusions that the author draws seemingly out of nowhere.

To sum this all up, I might wish this book on my worst enemy after it goes through another five editions.