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Textbook revisons



Hi Physics Phriends,

Steve Luzader wrote:

Leigh Palmer wrote:

It has always astonished me that physics textbooks are so poorly
written that they must be constantly revised. ...

I raised this issue with a publisher's rep many years ago, and I was
told that the books usually aren't revised because they need to be
rewritten. The real reason is that the buying public wants the books
to look 'new and fresh'.

It wouldn't surprise me 'none' if a major motivating factor for the
publisher would be to jack up the sales of new volumes by making it
difficult for students resell their textbooks year after year to each
succeeding group of students to go through the course.

Last summer with two years to go until retirement, I wanted to use the 7th
edition of University Physics (Sears,...), for my last two yearsof
teaching. Addison-Wesley told me there was no way to get the 7th edition
from them and we weren't able to find it on the used book market. So I'm
using the 9th editon by Young & Freeman, switching torque symbols from
Gamma to Tau, etc., etc., on Reading Notes, Class notesheets, review
notes, tests, and whatever. One of my projects for today is to choose the
problem set for Chapter 22 on Electric Charge and Electric Fields.

David


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David R. Thiessen FUN + PHYSICS = PHUN
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dthiessn@nslsilus.org (Quote sources long forgotten)
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