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Re: Our textbook



-----Original Message-----
From: Forum for Physics Educators [mailto:PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu] On Behalf
Of Larry Smith
Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2004 10:26 PM
To: PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu
Subject: Re: Our textbook

On 7 Apr 2004 at 20:24, Ludwik Kowalski wrote:

Students are
deprived of the pleasure which comes from the
feeling of mastering "nearly everything" in a
textbook.


This is incredible. I have never witnessed a single case where an
undergraduate
student had mastered the content of a text...any text.


Nor have I noticed any cases where the student felt deprived of the
pleasure Ludwik describes.

Larry

For the record:

City College Linear Algebra--

Old text: Advanced Engineering Mathematics, Erwin Kreyszig 7th Ed.
1271 pages, not including appendices and index. (was not used for
any other classes)

New text: Multivariable Calculus, James Stewart, 4th/5th Ed.
509 pages, Contains chapters 11-18, 11-16 being review for this
course.
And: Linear Algebra for Calculus, Heuvers, Francis, Kuisti...
206 pages.

Since most students take Calculus there also, they can use their calculus
book (Calculus, Stewart all chapters) and just buy the smaller Linear
Algebra book (running a whopping $36).

The intermediate physics courses nearly cover everything in their texts as
well. (Fowels, 6th Ed. 484 pages 6" x 9" and Griffiths, 2nd/3rd Ed. ~500
pages)

I happen to feel that it is encouraging to cover an entire book and not have
to be reminded of how much one does not know.

Josh Green