Description
A beloved introductory physics textbook, now including exercises and an answer key, explains the concepts essential for thorough scientific understanding
In this concise book, R. Shankar, a well‑known physicist and contagiously enthusiastic educator, explains the essential concepts of Newtonian mechanics, special relativity, waves, fluids, thermodynamics, and statistical mechanics. Now in an expanded edition—complete with problem sets and answers for course use or self‑study—this work provides an ideal introduction for college‑level students of physics, chemistry, and engineering; for AP Physics students; and for general readers interested in advances in the sciences. The book begins at the simplest level, develops the basics, and reinforces fundamentals, ensuring a solid foundation in the principles and methods of physics.
Good advice, subjects, and on updating me.
Liked its comprehensiveness, did not like the frequent use of poor grammar and poor word choices.
I would highly recommend this book to someone who is going back/reviewing what they know. It is a great book for that purpose. I grabbed this book since I plan on teaching a friend of mine some basic physics and I needed to brush up on some of the material so I don’t overwhelm him, so this book works great as a tool to refresh myself and to better translate the information of a textbook over to him. I wouldn’t recommend it to someone who is just getting started though to be honest because the material is more for someone seeking an understanding of the material after having learned some very basic physics. The best way I would describe it as is probably a great book for a professor to use as a guide while teaching beginners.
I’ve had some professors who have known their subject deeply but don’t know how to teach it. Dr. Shankar has not only the gift of clearly teaching the subject matter but also unexpectedly throwing in tidbits of dry physics humor which students thrive on. (I’m a firm believer that a sense of dry physics humor is a sign of high intelligence! Not to brag, but as a former high school physics teacher I used it quite often myself!)
For a person doing a self-study, FUNDAMENTALS OF PHYSICS BOOKS 1 AND 2 are awesome! Presentation is given in a conversational style that makes you feel as if you are in the classroom as a beginning undergraduate physics student in Dr. Shankar’s class. The books cover a full range of topics in a rigorous way. The books presume students have completed a course in vector calculus. One more thing: The newer edition of book 2 contains a full set of problems at the end of each chapter complete with all the answers to not only the odd # problems but also the even # problems which is very important for a person working thru the book as a self-study! (Some authors do not provide answers to any of their problems!! Maybe they don’t know how to do the problems themselves!!) Not only does Dr. Shankar give the answers but he also provides a complete set of solutions on a separate website.
Topics for the 2 books are::
FUNDAMENTALS OF PHYSICS-BOOK 1- MECHANICS, RELATIVITY, THERMODYNAMICS:
Newton’s Laws of Motion, Conservation of Energy, Kepler’s Laws of Celestial Motion, Conservation of Momentum, Rotational Dynamics, Special Relativity, Mathematical Methods, Waves, Fluids, Heat, The 3 Laws of Thermodynamics.
FUNDAMENTALS OF PHYSICS-BOOK 2- ELECTROMAGNETISM, OPTICS, QUANTUM MECHANICS:
Coulomb’s Law, Electric Fields, Gauss’s Law-Theory and Application, Electric Potential, Conductors and Capacitors, Circuits and Currents, Lorentz Forces, Biot-Savart Law, Faraday and Lenz’s Law, AC and LRC Circuits, E & M Waves and Relativity, Geometric Optics, Mirrors & Lenses, Quantum Mechanics, Wave & Particle Theory of Light, Wave Functions, Momentum and Energy States, Quantum Dynamics.
The author is an excellent teacher. He knows his stuff. He respects the reader. Does a good job in explaining fundamentals