Textbook Review: Fundamentals of Physics

 

This is the physics textbook by Halliday, Resnick, and Walker which is the required textbook for many calculus-based physics classes. It is what I would describe as a pretty standard textbook. It gives you a pretty good explanation of the theory, and because it is for a calculus-based physics class, it has a lot of proofs/derivation of the equations (which is mainly how calculus is used in calc-based physics classes). Because of that, it does not have a ton of examples, especially examples that give a lot of guidance for the hardest problems in the problem sets. It covers all of the main topics in the first two semesters of physics. The last couple of chapters cover more advanced topics like nuclear physics and particle physics to bridge to the concepts (like quantum physics and relativity) that would be covered in a modern physics class. You definitely need to have the first couple of semesters of calculus under your belt to understand the math being used to derive the equations. A couple of concepts from multivariable calculus do get used in the book, but it is mostly you just need to know how to take single-variable derivatives and integrals. 

The problems are broken down by difficulty level. Level one problems are the easiest, and can basically all be solved by reading the chapter and understanding the examples. Level two problems are harder and require more thought and a deeper understanding of the concepts. Most of them can be solved if you understand the last example or two in the chapter text, but that is not the case with all of them. The level three problems are the hardest and the ones that are most likely to trip people up. I am a big advocate for working as many problems as you can. In a perfect world, people would be able to work through all of the problems, as the level one problems help you to get the skills to do the level two problems and so on. Of course, if you are taking a class as opposed to self-studying, that may not be possible, but if you can do it, that is the best way to use the book. I do think it is helpful to pair this with a study guide, especially one that has a lot of worked-out examples because you will definitely get stuck at some point when working on the problem set.

While I do not think the book is perfect, and honestly in all the math, science, and engineering classes that I took, I never did have a book that I would call perfect, it does give you a good presentation of the theory and has a decent mix of problems. If you pair it with something like the Schaum's 3000 solved physics problems guide, you will get through the material.