2 comments about Schaum's Outline of Beginning Physics I: Mechanics and Heat (Schaum's).

1. Amazon's preview of the book itself would be more useful if it complemented customer reviews. Yable of Contents always shows only one page when it may consist of two or several pages. The author's Preface and Introduction would tell what the scope and intent of the book would be. One random page, obtained by Surprise Me, shows a delta y over delta x. But is it a calculus-based book? I can't assume it is.



2. A previous reviewer gave this book a bad rating because she/he was not pleased with the preview pages offered at Amazon. Actually the preview pages are ok - it just happens that the author is dedicating the first chapter to brush up the students math. The book holds what the author promises in the preface: "The book is specifically designed to allow students with relatively weak mathematics and science problem solving to quickly gain the needed quantitative reasoning skills as well as confidence in addressing the subjects in physics"
   The book is designed to accompany first year college students. Price/Value ratio seems ok - and it blends in with the second part "Beginning Physics II" (which has received good ratings as well).

1 comments about Introduction to Hydrodynamic Stability.

1. Drazin was an excellent writer (see Hydrodynamic Stability and Nonlinear Systems), but this book felt very disorganized to me, possibly because he passed away shortly before it's release.

   The concept is very good: how do we get from instability to full-fleged turbulence, and are we even ready to answer the question? He gives a good explanation of the stability of ODEs, and follows this with a discussion of the standard linear hydrodynamic stability problems (Kelvin-Helmholtz, Rayleigh-Bénard, etc.). It ends with a discussion of the transition to turbulence.

   But the problem is that he has already treated most of these topics in his other books, and the earlier treatments were nearly identical in many respects, or they were just plain better. Even regarding the new material on transition to turbulence, I feel that it did not serve to unify the earlier topics as it should have.

   Some further editing may have greatly improved this book and better underscored the overlying theme, but as it stands I feel that one is better off spending their time on his other books.

4 comments about Classical and Computational Solid Mechanics (Advanced Series in Engineering Science).

1. A great bible in solid mechanics created by 2 excellent masters from China, which have fundamantal contributions to contemperary mechanics and FEM.
   In first part, you will read the complete methodology in classic solid mech. While in second part, the outline of FEM has been demonstrated clearly.



2. I found it to be an excellent reference for Elasticity and Inelasticity material. It is a good addition to my library.



3. I was an acquaintance of Professor Y.C. "Burt" Fung when he wrote his classic Solid Mechanics book - "Foundations of Solid Mechanics." He had just left Cal Tech to work in the field of Biomechanics at UC San Diego. This book contains much of the same material, updated to the present time, with very nice historical writings about the founders of Solid Mechanics. This is an excellent reference for anyone that considers themself a solid mechaniker.



4. The authors are very keen on this area. The book is suite for the researcher.

5 comments about Problems and Solutions on Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics (Major American Universities Ph.D. Qualifying Questions and Solutions).

1. The entire series is my savior. Each volume covers the material needed in the junior/senior level of physics. It truly has an emense selection of problems. I found that nearly all of my homework/exams were either exactly the same or merely a slight variation from one contained. I also have yet to find a single error, not even a sign error. One important thing is that it does need to be a supplement, as formulas are sometimes used without explicit reference to why. In general the reasons need to be found in an assigned text. My only gripe (and it is minor) is with the index...the index does not, in general, lead one to a relevent problem. For example, uses of Biot/Savart to solve this problem or that... The reason this is not a serious problem is that each topic has so many variations on the method/technique that it is simple enough to find at least a couple that are completely relevent. (given you know which section to look in)



2. All of these books titled "Problems and Solutions on (subject): Major American Universities Ph.D. Qualifying Questions and Solutions" are invaluable tools for a physics graduate student, in my experience.

   One criticism: The index for this particular book is nonexistent. I am writing my own in my copy of the book.

   If you are a student in physics, I suggest that you get your hands on these books.




3. it is a good book..
   though most of the problems solved are on the same pattern...



4. The books in this series are a valuable resource for studying for PhD screening/comprehensive exams. Working through practice problems is, in my opinion, the best way to prepare for these tests. This book covers a wide range of topics, so you can find the section on whatever your thermodynamic weakness is and really work it out. Not every equation in the solutions is motivated, but working through and puzzling over the derivations is in itself extremely helpful.



5. I liked the book. I think that it helps to review
   the subject and test how much you studied. You also
   can learn some tricks. I recomend.

5 comments about Nonlinear Solid Mechanics: A Continuum Approach for Engineering.

1. I am a graduate student with the mechanical engineering department at Dalhousie university. This book is one of the best texts I have ever read. Every chapter is well organised and the material is presented in a clear manner that stimulates your interest on the subject of continuum mechanics. I have no doubt that engineers of all disciplines (students & professionals) as well as physists and other scientists will find the book as exciting as I have.



2. We were required to use this book for ENME670 Continuum Mechanics at the University of Maryland. It was so terrible I had to constantly seek out other resources. I had gotten many books out of our library, almost all of which were more useful than this one (Mase was particularly helpful). Maybe I am being a bit unfair because our professor did not closely follow this book but instead went off of his own notes, but still I cannot think of many textbooks that I liked less than this one throughout my college career. Perhaps this book would have been useful to someone who already knows many of the basics of Continuum Mechanics, but for me it was just horrendous.



3. This book is actually very good. It has a great sections about hyperelastic materials (~ 100 pages). Also it explains well tensors operations (2nd order and 4th order tensors)...



4. This book is basically a regurgitation and watered-down version of "Mathematical Foundations of Elasticity", by Marsden and Hughes ( Mathematical Foundations of Elasticity ), just like so many other recently released texts/references including treatments of non-linear continuum mechanics (MFoE was released in 1983, and anticipated a great deal of published work hence). This title has neither the depth of treatment nor the rigorous precision of MFoE. Still it is useful since it does expand more on topics this title and MFoE share in common.
   
   Holzapfel has the distinct "flavor", in many places throughout his work in this book, of the writings/work of Juan C. Simo, one of the superlative workers in non-linear finite elements, who also worked in collaboration with T.J.R. Hughes (e.g., Computational Inelasticity (Interdisciplinary Applied Mathematics) ), and is now deceased.
   
   This is a fresh presentation however and Holzapfel does an excellent job of conveying difficult concepts while maintaining rigor, which is no easy feat. The only place this work falls a little short on rigorous precision is in the treatment of linearization of the non-linear system(s) resulting from the various weak forms.
   
   I did find Holzapfel's treatment of the Lie derivative, just like many other recently published works on the same subject, a bit more revealing and intuitive, while maintaining the requisite rigor, than the alternative derivation/explanation in MFoE.



5. Unfortunately I never got the book, Amazon shipped it twice and it never made it to my office. All I can say about it is: never use Expedited International Shipping. It will get lost and there is no way to track it.

1 comments about Hold Paramount: The Engineer's Responsibility to Society.

1. An engaging short novel about an engineer, interspersed with side-bars on philosophy, history, and several well-known historical case studies. Like many other successful books on engineering ethics, co-authorship by an engineer and a philosopher/ethicist results in a thoughtful perspective on practical dilemmas that any engineer might encounter. By the time the reader has finished the book, essentially all of the categories of ethical conflicts encountered by engineers and addressed in professional engineering codes of ethics have been illustrated. This book (or just sections of it) would be a valuable supplement to almost any engineering design course.

1 comments about Fundamental Mechanics of Fluids, Third Edition (Mechanical Engineering (Marcell Dekker)).

1. This book is perfect for a graduate level fluid mechanics text book. It covers both inviscid and viscous flow. Currie proves the equations with a great level of accuracy. This book is an ideal companion to study for a qualifying exam. This is probably the most thorough graduate level text on fluid mechanics. Currie takes the time to prove everything very accurately.

3 comments about A Brief Introduction to Fluid Mechanics, Student Solutions Manual.

1. This was the book used for my first course in fluid mechanics and it was great. The text is easy to understand and follow. Example problems are done out fully. The material in the book is not in-depth enough to make it a great reference, but as far as instruction goes, this book is superb. Another great part of this book is that it is not as expensive as other texts. A new copy of the second edition was less than $40 at the campus bookstore.
   
   A note to instructors, the solution manual (which is also excellent) is readily available online - or at least it used to be.



2. Although brief (as the name of the text implies), I have found that this is a wonderful companion text for any fluid mechanics course. Such courses are often taught during the upper level undergrad or entry level grad portions of the C.Eng., Hydrology, M.Eng., and Env.Eng. programs. The selling point in this text is the detail of the diagrams and examples. This alone should interest students. These examples are really good and the level of detail is thorough so that one can easliy apply concepts from problem to problem. My only complaint is minimal. The complaint is that the text is indeed brief and as such, sometimes the wording and explanation suffers. Aside from that, I highly recommend this text as a companion to other texts used in fluid mechancs courses.



3. This solutions manual does not provide answers to the questions at the end of each chapter of the fluid mechanics book; instead the solutions correspond to the Review Problems section on the book website. There are around 15 problems worked out per chapter, all of which are easy to follow and understand. This book is a good reference to have but for me isn't worth the money since it doesn't help me work through my homework problems.

3 comments about Analytical Dynamics.

1. words really can not explain how to rank this book! ..but what I can say is...Haim Baruh; thank you sir for this gift to the world of dynamics

   very well: 1. Organized 2. Explained topics 3. Solved examples..(truly...A LOT) This book covers evry thing people can think about in the world of dynamics..it realy worth more than hundred dollar for the person who cares about understanding D Y N A M I C S

   Note: graduate level book




2. This book differs from most graduate level texts on dynamics in that it clarifies concepts with plenty of methodically worked out examples. Also, this book is extremely useful for engineers as it balances advanced theories with applications. Author has put a lot of effort and thought in writing this book and deserves special thanks for contribution to education in the field of dynamics.



3. This book is OK. For a graduate level text, I found that it lacked rigor and difficult solutions to example problems seemed "hand wavy". That is, I don't think that it is practical to memorize the general acceleration term for an object (rigid body or particle). Example problems (using Newton-Euler to derive equations of motion) are solved in the text by finding the translational acceleration, then the Coriolis acceleration, etc. and plugging them into the acceleration equation. In practice, if you can write the position vector of an object and you are careful about your inertial and non-inertial frames then calculus will give you the correct acceleration---every time.
   
   A strong point of the book is all the problems at the end of each chapter. If you can do them, you can do dynamics. But, Baruh's text before the problems might not prepare you to write the solutions.

5 comments about An Introduction to Computational Fluid Dynamics: The Finite Volume Method (2nd Edition).

1. it is very good book in CFD for novice people.



2. Very clear introduction to the finite volume method, with worked examples at the end of a topic to illustrate the points being discussed.



3. fairly readable text, not too dense. only problem is the numerous typos throughout the equations.



4. The book was received unbound. I am almost quite certain it was not designed to be like this. The pages were never glued into the cover. Because this item is needed immmediately for a research project, we must punch holes in the pages and bind it in a notebook ourselves rather than waste time in returning it. If I had a telephone number for your company I would call to express my disatisfaction.



5. An excellent place to start for the recent engineering graduate. Leads on from the basic numerical techniques, fluid theory and matrix solutions you learn in your undergraduate courses.
   This book will allow you to begin to use CFD codes.
   In order to develop a deeper understanding of the codes you are using, or to write your own codes the next step is Ferziger and Peric's "Computational Methods for Fluid Dynamics" AND Wilcox's "Turbulence Modeling for CFD".