Features

• Color Key. Consistent color coding of line art elements helps students identify and differentiate between force vectors, velocity vectors, acceleration vectors, magnetic fields, and positive and negative charges.
• Art Program and Design. Photographic illustrations of concepts tie applications to everyday events and objects. The interior design lends itself to simply help your students identify and read information/concepts more easily.
• Examples. There are over 340 worked examples in the body of the text, and in most cases the solutions are divided into three sections: strategy, solution, and discussion. The strategy section shows the students a conceptual way of analyzing the problem in order to decide what to do. The solution section presents the analysis and computation, and the discussion section points out to the student the significance of the answer and analysis. This approach helps direct students to a more productive way of solving problems than merely grasping for equations.
• Problem-Solving Guidelines. A general step-by-step guide to problem solving is given in the first chapter and this approach is reinforced throughout the book: in the examples, in the Hints for Solving Problems distributed throughout the end-of-chapter problems, and in the Problem-Solving Strategy boxes included in the narrative.
• Master the Concepts. A step-by-step solution of conceptual questions is presented utilizing the basic principles. This non-numerical analysis will help students visualize the concepts involved.
• End-of-Chapter Problems. These sets were significantly expanded in the third edition. There are now over six hundred conceptual questions and more than 2,250 computational problems. The problems are divided into three levels of difficulty. Those marked with one or two bullets typically require the synthesis of two or more ideas for their solution and occasionally include material from previous chapters. About two-thirds of the problems are arranged according to the section of the chapter in which the topic is discussed. Answers to the odd-numbered problems appear at the end of the text.
• Physics in Practice. These applications can be found in the text and examples and in special essays, which deal with topics ranging from automobile tires to liquid-crystal displays. Great care has been taken to provide a diversity of applications that will appeal to the broadest range of students. A list of these applications can be found on page xix of the text.
• Back to the Future. Physics is a science based on the efforts of real men and women struggling to understand how the world works. In these essays, physics is presented as a human activity in which new ideas are constantly being tried and in which scientific truth is never absolute. A new topic is introduced by describing the efforts of the scientists who made the breakthrough discoveries and advances, and the problems they encountered are discussed. This type of real-world illustration of the topics of measurements, models, and analysis is meant to bring to life the world of physics. Physics is emphasized as a way of thinking, investigating, and understanding rather than as a body of facts and theories.
• MCAT. Care has been taken to include all topics covered on the MCAT.
• Designated Optional Material. This allows different teachers to emphasize different parts of the text. Sections marked with an asterisk may be safely omitted without fear that their content will be needed in subsequent sections or chapters.