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

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 problems2. Not just the answers given, but the work shown3. Not just the work shown, but reasoning given where appropriateSchaum'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 = 2mgE(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/CDiagrams 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

Should be mandatory in schools. Lots of questions.

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.

This book is amazing. It can be useful for many purposes such as Gre physics's preparation or others tests of university.In my case, I am international student and I must take the physics GRE. In this book I found a lot of exercises which are precisely what I need (The kind of problems that I used to are little different from physics GRE)

This is Kirk's daughter. This book has helped me a lot with my college physics class. My professor doesn't give us much homework, so this book has been a good resource. When I need more information on a certain type of problem, I can always find several examples in this book. The explanations are simple but complete. My high school sister also has a copy of this book, and she has found it helpful for her high school physics class.

I find the Schuam's books are very handy for the courses I take. I love this book! This book is a must for physics. It has over prepared me for exams, lol. I got a couple of 100's on the exam. There are so many examples for each topic covered, and explanations, which makes the concepts so clear. Did I mention that I love this book! This is definitely a keeper. It helps for those of you tha have sucky teachers and tutors.

Bought this with the course outline book. The course outline book proved to be the only book I really needed. This one does a nice job of working through problems, but ultimately is going to be used a resource for creating better test questions for my students.Buy this if you need loads of practice problems varying in math level from algebra (high school and AP level physics) to calculus (AP Physics C and College). If you are looking for review and some concept explanation, then go for Schaum's Outline instead.

I never actually got this book because of a customs issue but it's a good book.