Re: Physics

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: Mddeming@xxxxxxx 

In a message dated 5/22/05 9:43:08 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, 
tesla@xxxxxxxxxx writes:
Original poster: "Dave Halliday" <dh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

And while we are on the subject of the Sears Physics book -- the
Halliday and Resnick one is pretty good too.
They do require some basic math but nothing beyond simple rocket
science.

And yes, I am a little biased -- that's my Dad we are talking about  :-)


Hi Dave,

    Having plowed through Halliday & Resnick, Sears & Zemanski, Shortly & 
Williams, and the Feynman Lectures, back when they were all the hottest and 
newest on the market, I would concur that all offer solid introductions to 
physics. I still use them interchangeably for references. though I 
personally prefer the literary style of the Feynman books, it is a sad fact 
of life that you can't do/understand much physics without mathematics, 
except in a qualitative way.
    That being said, there have been several attempts at what I call "Ooh 
and Aah" physics texts for liberal arts majors and others suffering from 
acute innumeracy. Three such books are
Art Hobson's "Physics - Concepts and Connections", Alvin Saperstein's 
"Physics: Energy in the Environment", and the very readable but now 
somewhat dated Isaac Asimov's "Understanding Physics." A more elementary 
introduction can be found in Alexander Efron's "Basic Physics" which was 
written for New York City's premiere science high school.
    Understanding the paper cited well enough to evaluate or critique it 
however, will require a great deal of both math and physics.

Hope this helps,

Matt D.