Description

For Introductory Calculus-based Physics Courses.

This package includes MasteringPhysics®.

Putting physics first
Based on his storied research and teaching, Eric Mazur’s Principles & Practice of Physics builds an understanding of physics that is both thorough and accessible. Unique organization and pedagogy allow students to develop a true conceptual understanding of physics alongside the quantitative skills needed in the course.

• New learning architecture: The book is structured to help students learn physics in an organized way that encourages comprehension and reduces distraction.

• Physics on a contemporary foundation: Traditional texts delay the introduction of ideas that we now see as unifying and foundational. This text builds physics on those unifying foundations, helping students to develop an understanding that is stronger, deeper, and fundamentally simpler.

• Research-based instruction: This text uses a range of research-based instructional techniques to teach physics in the most effective manner possible.

The result is a groundbreaking book that puts physics first, thereby making it more accessible to students and easier for instructors to teach. MasteringPhysics® works with the text to create a learning program that enables students to learn both in and out of the classroom.

 

This program provides a better teaching and learning experience for you and your students. Here’s how:

• Build an integrated, conceptual understanding of physics: Help students gain a deeper understanding of the unified laws that govern our physical world through the innovative chapter structure and pioneering table of contents.

• Encourage informed problem solving: The separate Practice Volume empowers students to reason more effectively and better solve problems.

• Personalize learning with MasteringPhysics: MasteringPhysics provides students with engaging experiences that coach them through physics with specific wrong-answer feedback, hints, and a wide variety of educationally effective content.
  

This package includes MasteringPhysics, an online homework, tutorial, and assessment program designed to work with this text to personalize learning and improve results. With a wide range of interactive, engaging, and assignable activities, students are encouraged to actively learn and retain tough course concepts.

MasteringPhysics is not a self-paced technology and should only be purchased when required by an instructor. Please be sure you have the correct ISBN and Course ID.  Instructors, contact your Pearson representative for more information.

Features

New learning architecture

The book is structured to help students learn physics in an organised way that encourages comprehension and reduces distraction.

• The separation of the Principles and Practice volumes addresses students' tendency to focus on shallow problem solving at the expense of understanding. The Principles volume teaches the physics; the Practice volume teaches the skills needed to apply physics to the task of solving problems. For example, Principles includes simple worked examples aimed at promoting understanding; Practice contains complex worked examples, problem sets, and related features.
• The division of each Principles chapter into a Concepts section and a Quantitative Tools section helps students to build a robust understanding of the material instead of focusing too quickly on equations. The Concepts section develops the ideas in qualitative terms, using words and pictures and building from specific observations to general principles. The Quantitative Tools section formalises the ideas mathematically.
• The core ideas of mechanics are developed in one dimension, helping students to concentrate on learning them before tackling the mathematical complexities of two-dimensional analysis. Chapter 10, 'Motion in a Plane,' introduces the second dimension.

Physics on a contemporary foundation

Traditional texts take a somewhat 19th-century approach to physics, delaying the introduction of ideas that we now see as unifying and foundational. This text builds physics on those unifying foundations, helping students to develop an understanding that is stronger, deeper, and fundamentally simpler.

• Conservation laws. The conservation laws are the backbone of contemporary physics. This text develops conservation of momentum and energy before Newton's laws, and it emphasises symmetry, conservation, and unity throughout. In mechanics, this approach avoids many of the pitfalls related to the concept of force, leads naturally to the two-body character of forces, and enables students to solve a range of problems before bringing in calculus.
• Concept of a system. Many ideas in physics depend on distinguishing system from surroundings, and selecting an appropriate system is a key skill for solving many types of problems. This text uses the idea of a system explicitly and consistently.
• Relativity. Both Galilean and special relativity help to explain many ideas of physics. This text introduces reference frames in Chapter 6, and it covers special relativity in Chapter 14, rather than at the end of the second semester.
• Statistical treatment of thermodynamics. The traditional, 19th-century approach to thermodynamics is intensely confusing to students. This text builds thermodynamics on a more logical and coherent foundation, starting with an accessible treatment of the statistical basis for entropy.

Research-based instruction

In addition to the large-scale features listed above (all of which are based in research), this text uses a range of other research-based instructional techniques.

• Strong connection to experiment and experience. As much as possible, this text develops ideas from experimental observations–often ones the student can make. In working out the physical reasoning that leads from observations to principles, the text often reads like a dialog between author and reader. This approach is very different from the traditional one in which definitions and principles are stated ex cathedra and then backed up with derivations and examples.
• Strong visual instruction. The figures in the Principles volume are designed as visual explanations, presenting ideas in visual terms and collaborating actively with the text. In a

Table of Contents

• 1. Foundations
•  2. Motion in One Dimension
•  3. Acceleration
•  4. Momentum
•  5. Energy
•  6. Principle of Relativity
•  7. Interactions
•  8. Force
•  9. Work
• 10. Motion in a Plane
• 11. Motion in a Circle
• 12. Torque
• 13. Gravity
• 14. Special Relativity
• 15. Periodic Motion
• 16. Waves in One Dimension
• 17. Waves in Two and Three Dimensions
• 18. Fluids
• 19. Entropy
• 20. Energy Transferred Thermally
• 21. Degradation of Energy
• 22. Electric Interactions
• 23. The Electric Field
• 24. Gauss’s Law
• 25. Work and Energy in Electrostatics
• 26. Charge Separation and Storage
• 27. Magnetic Interactions
• 28. Magnetic Fields of Charged Particles in Motion
• 29. Changing Magnetic Fields
• 30. Changing Electric Fields
• 31. Electric Circuits
• 32. Electronics
• 33. Optics
• 34. Wave and Particle Optics