alternatives to Halliday?

[Ben Crowell <bcrowell@SPRINTMAIL.COM>]

I'd like to thank everyone who responded to my request for suggestions
on alternatives. I hope the discussion was useful to other people as
well.
I think you can get a summary of the discussion so far at this url:
http://mailgate.nau.edu/cgi-bin/wa?S2=phys-l&q=&s=alternatives+to+Halliday&f=&a=&b=

(It may get broken into two lines by the phys-l software.)

Re Sherwood and Chabay, I'm a little confused. The only title I could
turn
up on amazon.com was this:
  Physics Fourth Edition Volumes One and Two Extended and Chabay's
Electric and
  Magnetic Interactions Set
  by Bruce A. Sherwood, Ruth W. Chabay, David Halliday
  Our Price: $179.85
  Paperback - 2016 pages (May 1996)
  John Wiley & Sons; ISBN: 0471169811
This isn't actually what students would buy, is it? Neither the price
nor the page
count makes any sense to me. Is there a different ISBN for a different
version of
the book?

David Ward strongly recommended Knight. I agree that it's a wonderful
book,
but it doesn't seem appropriate to me for a 3-semester engineering
physics
course.

Robert Cohen wrote:
> I have enjoyed the discussion of alternatives to Halliday.  However,
I'm
> confused by the difference between Serway and Beichner's "Physics for
> Scientists and Engineers" and Serway's "Principles of Physics".  I got
the
> impression that the latter had more PER infused into it.  Can anybody
> provide more information comparing the two?  Also, has similar changes
> occurred in Serway's algebra-based text?  In the same vein, can someone

> provide some opinions on the algebra-based texts in general?

My own opinions (along with a shameless plug for my own book) are
given at:
http://www.lightandmatter.com/area1recs.html

Robert also wrote:
> Speaking of texts, it seems that physics textbooks undergo a new
edition
> every three or four years or so.  Personally, while I appreciate
> improvements in the texts, in most cases I don't think the improvements

> are worth the change.  For example, when a new edition comes out,
students
> can no longer sell back used textbooks to the bookstore.  Also, I write

> study guides for the students and my references to page numbers and
such
> have to be redone for each new edition.

I believe there was some discussion on this point recently, and one
reason
offered was the perception that homework problems went "stale" after a
while, because fraternities would start files of solutions, etc.
(Personally
I just hand out solutions, and when I grade homework I'm careful to
look for solutions that are obviously copied or paraphrased from my
own.)
I think there is also intense pressure on schools to use recent
textbooks,
since often other schools will not articulate the course (consider it
as equivalent to their own when students transfer) unless the book is
recent.

> I'm sorry.  I suppose I am just venting.  Does anybody else share my
> concern?  Should I be concerned?  Is there a textbook that
> DOESN'T get revised every few years?  Is there a solution?

OK, I'll try not to go too far with the self-promotion, but my own
book (for a one-year biology-majors type course) is one solution.
It's available in digital form at zero cost. There's
a new "edition" every month or so, but I don't change the homework
problems unnecessarily.

        Ben