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jyb's review against another edition
Sadly, a DNF at 50%. I really wanted to like this book, but even with having just taken multiple calculus and physics classes in past two years, I could barely understand and follow the equations in the latter 2/3rds of this book. (I understood the introductory stuff, of course, but after that it was beyond me.) This book acts less like an introduction and more like a refresher. I'm probably also held back by the fact that I've always been very bad at learning from textbooks; I might check out Susskind's lectures instead. It's such a shame, because I was really hoping to get something from this series. I also suppose if I sat down with the book and really worked on the equations, I'd understand it more, but that wasn't really the type of reading I was hoping to get out of this series. Maybe I'll come back to this some day, but I really think I'm just going to replace this with the lectures. Disappointed.
Edit: After some ruminating, I think this book is best for people who want the college course without the college. Pair this with the lectures, sit down with a pencil and paper, get ready to solve some equations, and this book is perfect for you. However, I've already got the actual courses themselves scheduled for the future, and I didn't open this book to do half the work of a college course– I'm just here to read. Guess I'm just not the target audience.
Edit: After some ruminating, I think this book is best for people who want the college course without the college. Pair this with the lectures, sit down with a pencil and paper, get ready to solve some equations, and this book is perfect for you. However, I've already got the actual courses themselves scheduled for the future, and I didn't open this book to do half the work of a college course– I'm just here to read. Guess I'm just not the target audience.
pascalibrary's review
Kind of breezed through this - skipped most of the exercises, especially if they were tedious. Really just wanted an introduction to Lagrangian/Hamiltonian/Poisson, and I got that. The authors play very loose with the mathematics, giving us stuff with very little motivation or development. The notation is a bit rough, sometimes hard to follow even with close attention. That said, I would think that a closer study than I gave this would afford greater reward. I really just want to read the next books in the series and this one gives background information that I think would be useful.
adambatten's review against another edition
3.0
This was a pretty quick read as I learn most of the content already in some of my courses, but it was still very good as a refresher. I would definitely recommend it to someone that is looking to learn more about physics but also wants to get stuck in with some maths. The course I did at Uni that was based on Leonard's lecture series was one of my favourite, so it's nice to have it summarised into a book.
msewidan's review against another edition
3.0
Prof. Susskind is a great professor and has a great understanding of physics. Nonetheless, his writing style is not very easy.
weez13's review against another edition
challenging
4.5
This is a very special book. It's tough work actually going through the book, but if you do, you actually get some sense of how physicists actually think about problems, not some shallow popularization.
alesioo2's review
4.0
Terminó la lectura justo cuando estoy empezando a cursar la materia Mecánica Clásica. Este libro cubre muy rápidamente lo que se da en cualquier curso de Física 1, explicado de una manera muy didáctica y simple, y con repasos matemáticos sobre como se deriva e integra. Es un libro perfecto para arrancar con la física a quienes estén interesados pero su vocación los llevó para otro lado. La segunda mitad del libro ya arranca con mecánica de Lagrange y Hamilton, temas que yo aún no ví en la carrera, me expuse por primera vez a estos contenidos con esta lectura y la experiencia fue muy satisfactoria.
mandiealleskan's review
5.0
WOW. Just WOW. This is such a different way of looking at physics, and also such a comprehensive yet in-depth way of teaching it! It's waaaay different from the way I was taught physics in school (for example, I had never even heard of a Lagrange or a Hamiltonian, but it's apparent that they're very useful in solving certain equations), and I'm thankful to have read it. I will have to re-read it, though, because I still don't comprehend everything (especially the derivations of all the various equations of motion for certain systems).
Overall, a fantastic book!
Overall, a fantastic book!
thomasindc's review against another edition
3.0
What is the theoretical minimum of understanding a text necessary to log it as “read” on goodreads without lying?
I can tell you that my eyes touched every word in this book. I can’t tell you how many of the typed elements penetrated the various parts of my eyeballs and how many of the equations were lost on their way through my nerves and into my brain. I was not a strong maths student, and never had a pre-Calculus class let alone Calculus. So, many of the equations in this book were essentially static to me.
I read all of the prose(?). But much of this prose broke down the equations—unfortunately not in a way that could make much sense to me. I thrived on the parts of the book that explored concepts more than the parts focusing on calculus.
As it turns out, the theoretical minimum to start doing physics is more than the practical maximum of my maths competency. The fault lies with me, not the book. I do think with a primer to *Calculus*, I could figure this out, but not in this form.
I can tell you that my eyes touched every word in this book. I can’t tell you how many of the typed elements penetrated the various parts of my eyeballs and how many of the equations were lost on their way through my nerves and into my brain. I was not a strong maths student, and never had a pre-Calculus class let alone Calculus. So, many of the equations in this book were essentially static to me.
I read all of the prose(?). But much of this prose broke down the equations—unfortunately not in a way that could make much sense to me. I thrived on the parts of the book that explored concepts more than the parts focusing on calculus.
As it turns out, the theoretical minimum to start doing physics is more than the practical maximum of my maths competency. The fault lies with me, not the book. I do think with a primer to *Calculus*, I could figure this out, but not in this form.