Schaum's 3,000 Solved Problems in Physics (Schaum's Outlines)

The physics problems in this book will make your brain hurt in A GOOD WAY. These problems are really good to test yourself. It will reveal your strengths and weaknesses and I love that because you need to do that to yourself. You must test yourself. Even when I went to do problems in this book On a subject that thought I really understood , I found myself Really stretching the way I had to think. And what’s good about this book is that they give you a lot of problems, and all those problems are asked in different ways. It makes you have to see things from different angles, but ultimately these problems in this book just are for practice. They do give you the solutions and explain the answers in each question, but regardless these problems will make you think and that’s when mastery becomes your skill. My only critique on this book is that when your calculating an answer, the book will round up more often than not. So if I get a number, for example, 88.36 The book will say 89.0 It’s not really a problem. It’s just something I noticed because I thought I was getting wrong answers, but then I realized that the book was just rounding up answers. So it’s all good. I highly recommend this book to sharpen your skills , go back and test yourself , See where you stand , and there’s a lot of problems that will help you. That’s my experience.

In anticipation of my son taking high school Physics, I went looking for a workbook. In previous years, he'd had some trouble with science and math textbooks which gave too few and not varied enough examples for completing homework. He was often searching on the internet for how to solve a problem. I had three requirements: 1. Huge variety of problems 2. Not just the answers given, but the work shown 3. Not just the work shown, but reasoning given where appropriate Schaum's "3,000 Solved Problems in Physics" answers all three requirements and does more. The solution is shown directly under the problem. The idea is that you put a piece of paper over the solution while you attack the problem. Here's a sample problem from the Chapter on "Coulomb's Law and Electric Fields" to show how the reasoning is given. [Note, I can't figure out how to make superscript on this webpage review. The [-12], [-19] and [-15] are actually superscript -12, etc., with no brackets.] 25.51 An oil drop carries six electronic charges, has a mass of 1.6 x 10[-12]g, and falls with a terminal velocity in air. What magnitude of vertical electric field is required to make the drop move upward with the same speed as it was formerly moving downward? SOLUTION: When the drop falls at its terminal velocity, the air friction force equals -mg. To make it move upward with the same speed, one has to overcome gravity as well as air friction in the downward direction, so it takes a force of 2mg upward. Each electron carries 1.6 x 10[-19]C of negative charge. F = Eq = 2mg E(6 x 1.60 x 10[-19]) = 2(1.6 x 10[-15])(9.8) and one more complicated formula with the ending answer 32.7 kN/C Diagrams and graphs aplenty where needed. There's 39 chapters. Physics covers a lot territory, and though I imagine this book doesn't cover every single word problem you'd ever come across, is still a thorough book. Also, the organization of this workbook is very good. At the beginning of the book is a chart for each chapter. Take the chart for Chapter 5, for example. It lists recommended problems to solve if you just want to make a quick Scan of the chapter. Then follows suggested problems for Homework practice. Homework is divided into a list for Everybody and a list for Calculus-Based Only homework. Lastly, it gives suggested problems lists for self-directed Exams of the chapter. Not only that, you can pick from an Easy Exam, a Hard Exam and a Calculus-Based Problems Only Exam. Each Exam has a suggested time of 60 minutes. If you look at the chart, you'll see that suggested problems are not duplicated among categories. Of course, you don't have to use the charts or recommended lists. As I wrote at the beginning, I'm more interested in a student being able to easily find a problem/solution example for a specific type of problem - and go straight to that problem. And for when the student is studying for the actual A.P. Physics test in May, the charts for Chapters 23-39 also include suggested problems for a Final Exam, meant to take 160-180 minutes. Each chapter has suggested problems for 2 Easy Exams, 2 Hard Exams and 2 Calculus-Based Exams. This is really an excellent book. That said, though, this is not a textbook. It is an adjunct to a textbook or a review vehicle. I just purchased it from this amazon page, and the edition date on the book we received is 2011. Happy Reader

This is one of the Schaum's guides that is really just a problems repository. It does not have much in the way of explanatory material designed to teach you the subject. It is meant to be used in conjunction with a textbook so you can get the explanation of the subject from the book and then come to this for problems. One very helpful thing is that it classifies the problems into categories. Some problems are meant to be very basic examples, much like you will see in the chapter text that are pretty easy and only take one or two steps to solve. Then the book will give homework problems that are divided into problems for everyone (basically problems you would see in algebra-based physics) and calculus-based homework problems. It also suggests problems to select for exams (easy, hard, or calculus-based) for each chapter and to use for a final exam. My one issue with the book is that there are not many of what I refer to as "compound problems". By that, I mean problems that have 6-7 steps that you have to solve, and you generally use the solution to one step to solve for one of the other steps and so on. In many calculus-based physics classes, calculus is used to derive the formulas, but on the exams, you just use algebra to solve compound problems. If I remember correctly, between the 8 exams I had in two semesters of calculus-based physics, we only had two or three problems that required using calculus in the exams. Obviously, this can vary from teacher to teacher, but because the problems that use calculus take so long to solve, on exams many teachers use problems that have multiple parts but you just use algebra to solve the problems. So, if you have a teacher who does that, this is likely to be more helpful to you on homework problems (where you generally will have to use calculus more) but may not be as helpful mimicking your exam problems. So, with those provisos, I definitely think it is one of the more helpful supplements out there and does give a good breakdown of the solutions so you actually learn how to solve the problems.

The nerd in me finds this very entertaining. It starts easy. I just got this for my ADHD fun. Did a whole bunch of problems, waited a year, then did a whole bunch( like 3). I'm pretty much an expert scientist now. No big deal.

Muy útil. De lo mejor en colecciones de problemas. Otro Schaum imprescindible.

Thank you! All went again very well.

Carinissimo.... Ottima guida per l'insegnamento... Fisica 1 e 2 e cenni di fisica moderna e relatività in un unico testo. Che volere di più?

This is an excellent resource for any student who needs to practice school or university level physics problems. A vast amount of material is covered and, although I will probably only attempt a fraction of the 3000 problems, it's reassuring to know that when I am struggling to tackle a physics problem this book should contain a similar problem. I also like the style of the book with the answer to each problem being located just underneath the problem itself - this saves lots of time. SI units are used for the most part. The answers themselves usually include some explanation which is helpful. There are numerous, helpful diagrams. Of the problems I have tackled so far there been any errors. Just a warning about the production quality - the paper is the recycled variety so looks and feels pretty cheap and the font size is quite small.

Very Good book for development of concepts. Good for IITJEE and IITJAM. Not fully exhaustive. You will need other books. But this is worth to have.