Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

This new edition (1st ed., CH, Apr'78) of Walker's popular compendium of questions and answers on various behaviors in the physical world, both natural and artificial, has more examples and is better organized than the first edition. The seven chapters are divided into areas of classical physics that should be familiar to high school and college students who take a basic course in physics. Topics covered are motion, fluids, sound, thermal processes, electricity and magnetism, optics, and vision. Questions range from the familiar to the intriguing and are interspersed with real short stories that relate to the appropriate physics being discussed. Although the book does not have a single equation to "frighten" those who are phobic to mathematics, it is not easily grasped by those who have not taken at least an elementary course in physics. There are good diagrams that visually explicate some of the phenomena in the different sections. The author encourages readers to interact with him, especially when the explanations are not wholly satisfactory. Good index and reference list. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through professionals; two-year technical program students. N. Sadanand Central Connecticut State University