This reader-friendly book presents the fundamental principles of physics in a clear and concise manner. Emphasizing conceptual understanding as the basis for mastering a variety of problem-solving tools, it provides a wide range of relevant applications and illustrative examples. This book discusses electricity and magnetism, optics, and modern physics. For anyone wishing to learn more about the fundamentals of physics and how physical principles apply to a variety of real-world situations, devices, and topics.

Customer Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your time with the regular edition
Comment: If you want a competitive advantage in this class, buy the ANNOTATED INSTRUCTORS EDITION. It is available used from the Amazon marketplace for only $99.

Instructors often use the suggested problems in the instructor's edition for their quizzes and tests.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: sloppy book
Comment: I bought this at Amazon.com from an Awesome Deal I found on DailyTool.com. This book is sloppy because my professor always tells us that don't trust the formulars from the book. However, the book does cover something interesting and related to our everyday life.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Not Much to Say...
Comment: As this was required text for my class, there's no need to pick it apart. Should have opted for the Teacher's edition. But who cares....I just saved a bunch of money on my school books by switching to Amazon.com, YEAH BABY.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Best Algebra Based Physics Text
Comment: Physics is a difficult subject. This text does an admirable job of making a difficult subject easier.

There are advantages and disadvantages to disallowing the writer to use calculus in writing the material. Some formulas require calculus to derive and so must be either taken on faith as true, or the derivations looked up in a calculus based test. Fortunately the times when this issue comes up are few enough to not seriously hamper the flow of the book.

This book may be read as a first book on Physics. I strongly recommend the book Conceptual Physics by Hewitt for a running start at the subject.

Members of the lay public interested in physics may read both of these texts, as they are at introductory level and contains material on classical as well as modern physics.

The units are in SI ( metric ) which simplifies the math.

The Wilson and Buffa text has Color photos of natural phenomenon and situations that illustrate the physics under discussion. There examples are intermixed throughout showing how to work problems involving the principles involved.

I believe this book is an important part of a well rounded education. Physics is NOT an easy topic. If it were, then Newton would have developed theories on relativity and gravity waves. This book does what it was designed to do, that is assist beginners in starting their journey.

I read the book. I found it to be fun.

Katherine Rogers
Yes, Real girls do physics.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Not Bad, Not Great
Comment: While I haven't had the pleasure of having Buffa for a professor (and by all accounts I'm planning on avoiding it), the book really isn't that bad. The sample problems are helpful and the escalating difficulty is appreaciated.

The downside is that he tends to get bogged down in little details that aren't really as important as he makes them out to be--especially considering that the book is for people who don't need calc-based Physics (read life science majors, and all non-science related majors who need a GE), and occasionally the problems seem totally unrelated to what has been presented in the text.

Still, as far as text books go, this one isn't bad and if you have a good teacher to go along, it'll serve you just fine.

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