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Vector Calculus
by Paul C. Matthews
Published February 1998
ISBN: 3540761802 |
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The New Solar System
by J.K. Beatty, C.C. Petersen, and A.L. Chaikin
Published January 1998
ISBN: 0521645875 |
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Statistics (8th Eds.)
by J.T. McClave, T. Sincich, and W. Mendenhall
Published August 1999
ISBN: 0130223298 |
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Unranked
Solid State Physics
by Neil W. Ashcroft and N. David Mermin
Published January 1976
ISBN: 0030839939 |
| | * I stopped ranking after this book.
1 No simple formula exists because the mechanism in place to rate these books is not simple in an academic situation as reading a novel. Rating textbooks is not purely objective. The professor, teaching style, general student motivation, and overall intellectual atmosphere play an equally important role as the content of the book. For example, the linear algebra book by Lay was easy to read, to the point, and very decent, but the course, utterly horrible. Conversely, the differential equations book by Braun is mediocre more ways that one whereas the course was good. The marks more or less reflect some of my personal feelings.
Quite a few good marks were given to books that, for the most part, were broad, "weed-out," survey courses though little was learned in substance and practice. But, they perform a function as spring boards toward the upper-division work; the advanced courses that follow like analytical mechanics, electricity and magnetism, thermodynamics, and fluid dynamics,
namely atmospheric physics (the ones building from these survey books, see calculus and general physics), because at least the basic foundation was provided for the technical, time-intensive ones.
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2 Not formally in tandem with the course, Griffith's book was treated as a reference to the material in E+M I and II. Thus, I have not been throughly exposed to it and cannot convey any convictions for or against, but, the sections I did read were understandable and well organized.
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