Product Description
This is the most up-to-date, accessible presentation of modern physics available. The book is intended for a one-semester course for students who have already taken basic physics and calculus courses. The balance of the book leans more towards ideas than experimental methods and practical applications because the beginning student is better served by a conceptual framework than by a mass of details. The sequence of topics follows a logical, rather than strictly hist… More >>
#1 by Anonymous on June 27, 2010 - 3:38 am
…While understanding can come from this book, the numerous typos distract, confuse, and degrade the quality of it. Examples of this include the following: on page 7, the definitions for t_0 and t should be switched (although it’s all relative); on pages 39, 40, and 41, there are occasions where a prime ‘ is either lacking or misplaced; on page 43, a variable dz’ should be replaced by dx’. Page 137, example 4.5 (b) gives contradictory exponents. The correct exponents are ^2 throughout. The answer is also wrong! (should be 2.47×10^15 Hz)
These are just a few occasions that I have noticed and have spent hours struggling with.
Rating: 2 / 5
#2 by Anonymous on June 27, 2010 - 5:37 am
Pick another book like Serway’s, or Tipler’s, or even Modern Atomic and Nuclear Physics, for a legitimate introduction to this subject. Beiser’s lazy treatment of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle and the Bohr atom amounts to little more than throwing out a few formulas and examples. The same goes for the transformations in special relativity – Tipler’s treatment is superior. Even the Schaum’s book in modern physics is better on this topic. His treatment of quantum mechanics was obviously meant to be ignored – hence the leaving out of important conceptual and explanatory material that, say, Modern Atomic and Nuclear Physics puts in. Overall, it is worthless in comparison to the previously mentioned books.
Rating: 1 / 5
#3 by Anonymous on June 27, 2010 - 6:44 am
At first I thought this book was very good and very well explained. Then I realised that sometimes he doesn’t tell us the whole story, leaving out certain calculations and stuff. First year textbooks are known to do this, but looking back at my first year textbooks, I found them to be more “complete”. It is a good starter book for Modern Physics, however, after that you will need something thicker.
Rating: 3 / 5
#4 by Anonymous on June 27, 2010 - 7:10 am
Beiser tries amazingly hard in order to make the book very understandable. He simplifies the math and explains the concepts very carefully. However, he fails to explain many of the concepts behind the math, so the student is left with a straightforward equation with no meaning. However, his scientific biographies and occasional digressions, as well as its clarity, make this a solid textbook.
Rating: 4 / 5
#5 by Paul on June 27, 2010 - 8:07 am
I did not think that this book offered too good of explanations. After taking the course with this book accompanying it, I did not feel that I went away with anything except for more confusion toward physics. If you are thinking about purchasing this book, you will probably want to try a different text.
Rating: 1 / 5