College Physics
Our interest in the book is for our algebra based physics sequence. Our students in these courses are mainly in the medical and biological areas. We are trying to focus these courses on the human body as a mechanical, electrical and thermodynamic system and are using the MCAT test as a guide. The book is certainly comprehensive enough for our needs.
While Newton's 3rd law is discussed it is such a hard idea for students that I think it deserves much more space in the text. The same could be set about electrical potential.
The book does not seem to be biased. I have one pet piev in that the Introduction ignores the development of physics between Plato/Aristotle and Galileo/Newton. For example the concept of conservation of momentum was worked out before before Newton and the idea that the world could be understood through experimentation gained ground in the high middle ages.
It is very difficult to use photos and examples that our students will immediately relate to since they are very tuned to technology and this changes fast. However this is not so important and I think that the students could see the relevance of the underlying physical principles to the human body.
Generally the book is clear. I don't like some of the language, eg on Page 741
"One of the rules for static electric fields and conductors is that the electric field must be perpendicular to the surface of any
conductor. This implies that a conductor is an equipotential surface in static situations."
This tends to de-emphasize the physical reason and may heighten students' tendency to just "know which equation to use here."
I would have preferred to say
"For a conductor the charges will arrange themselves such that they all have the same electrical potential. This happens very fast and once they have done this the electric field must be perpendicular to the surface of the condocutor."
The most important thing to be consistent about in this material is the notation for vectors. The book uses bold face to represent vectors. My concern is that this is not enough for students and it would be better to show the arrow over the symbol. The book also sometimes drop the boldface without saying "Now let us consider the magnitude of the Coulomb force"
The book follows the class divisions of introductory physics. The subdivisions are small enough to be assigned as readings for each day.
The book follows the "Kinematics First" approach which I think is more appropriate for medical/biology students than the "Energy First" approach. I would have preferred gravitation to be its own separate chapter since the is quite an intellectual leap from driving around a bend to the motion of the planets.
Generally the images are fine. I found some of the optics images a little hard to follow because the lines showing the actual rays and the perceived straight lines that our vision constructs were so close.
The books grammar is as good as mine.
The only cultural point I noted was in the Introduction where physics is presented as completely dormant through the middle ages. This misses the gradual development of technology and the growing realization that the world could be understood through experimentation, rather than just through logic.
It certainly contains much that is useful for our medical and biology students. Some of the hardest concepts will need additional material and extra class time but this is not a fatal problem.