College Physics

Reviewed by Lawrence Rees, Professor, Brigham Young University on 12/5/16

Comprehensiveness rating: 5

The book covers all the subjects traditionally included in an algebra-based college physics course. It includes bio-med applications, as is expected for this course, including dedicated chapters to there are dedicated chapters to fluid dynamics and nuclear physics in bio-med applications in fluid dynamics and nuclear physics. It also includes a chapter on the frontiers of physics, which is a nice addition. The text is just over 1400 pages long, but in terms of word count, it appears to be commensurate with typical texts.

There are chapter glossaries, a table of contents, and an index. I found the index spotty. It lists “conservation of momentum principle” and “elastic collisions,” but not “momentum” or “collisions,” for example.

Content Accuracy rating: 4

In reading over a number of chapters that often give students difficulty, I found that the text is generally accurate. There are a few errors. In one case, the historical background was inaccurate (but commonly repeated). More seriously, one argument led to a correct conclusion, but was non sequitur (in other words, it was a lie that looks true on the surface). There are very few typographical problems, and nothing in that realm of any consequence. On the whole the book is accurate, and the inaccuracies are not critical.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

Most of the subject matter has changed little in the last 50 years (or even 200 years in many cases). It’s not likely to change much in the near future, and the places where it has a higher likelihood of changing are mostly limited to a small number of chapters. The part that will change most rapidly are the applications.

Clarity rating: 4

General, the book is clearly written. I examined parts of the text where students struggle most and found a few places where I felt that the explanations were terse, though accurate. One introductory section (wave optics) seemed more likely to confuse students than to be a motivational introduction. I would be inclined to add a few definitions and more detailed explanations if I were to adopt the text. I felt that this was the text’s most significant problem. Numerically. I gave the text a 4 on clarity, but in reality it’s more like 3.7.

Consistency rating: 5

I found the structure of the text consistent throughout. Some topics were treated somewhat better than others, but on the whole it was all adequate and mostly quite good.

Modularity rating: 3

Modularity is important to me because I often like to cover topics in a little different order than is traditional. For example, I prefer to discuss conservation of momentum before Newton’s laws. As with most texts, this text makes it difficult to do that as the chapter on conservation of momentum makes extensive reference to force. I feel that the modularity of this text is typical for the genre, which means it is not especially good.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

The organization and structure are good. Examples are set off nicely. There are helps for working problems that are easily located as are the chapter glossaries. The logical flow is clear.

Interface rating: 4

The interface is fine. Some of the illustrations look like they were came from somewhat low-resolution jpeg files. (I downloaded the high-resolution version.) The lettering isn’t crisp and there are “jpeg shadows” in the white background. It’s not confusing, but looks a little less professional than if higher quality images were produced from the source applications.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

I’m picky about grammar and only noticed one grammatical/typographical error in all I read.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

There is certainly nothing that could be considered offensive to any group of people. I didn’t really notice whether the names in the examples seemed culturally diverse. There aren’t a lot of personal names used even in the examples and the problems. There is gender diversity.

I reviewed this book with an eye to adopting it for my second-semester algebra-based calculus course. I like the idea of open source texts and was hoping that I would find a text as good as the ones that are produced by major publishing houses. Frankly, I was a little disappointed. I feel I’d have to do more explanation and clarifying in class to compensate for things in the text that are a little vague. That being said, I recognize the difficulty of producing a text like this without the financial and technical support of a publisher. In the end, I think the text is acceptable. The beauty of the Creative Commons License is that I could do a modest amount of work to change it into something that I really like.