Computational Discrete Mathematics: Combinatorics and Graph Theory with Mathematica ®

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With examples of all 450 functions in action plus tutorial text on the mathematics, this book is the definitive guide to Experimenting with Combinatorica, a widely used software package for teaching and research in discrete mathematics. Three interesting classes of exercises are provided--theorem/proof, programming exercises, and experimental explorations--ensuring great flexibility in teaching and learning the material. The Combinatorica user community ranges from students to engineers, researchers in mathematics, computer science, physics, economics, and the humanities. Recipient of the EDUCOM Higher Education Software Award, Combinatorica is included with every copy of the popular computer algebra system Mathematica.

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Fertakis here offers a comprehensive discussion of administrative controls as they apply to major organizations, with particular emphasis on the interrelationship between accounting and administrative controls. As Fertakis notes at the outset, control in organizations is often poorly understood and inadequately implemented. His clear, practically oriented discussion of the design, purpose, and effective implementation of an administrative control system is intended to enable the reader to obtain a working familiarity with both the methods and problems involved and the benefits to be derived from establishing such a system. Fertakis' extensive coverage of the subject encompasses such critical aspects as the structure of operations controls, the relationship between organizational goals and the control environment, the measurement of performance, and the characteristics of a good business plan. He explains the operations controls process, taking the reader through the manufacturing, marketing, service, and project stages. Separate chapters are devoted in turn to financial, audit-related, budgetary, asset, and system-related controls. Finally, three chapters address special administrative control applications including controls in the legal environment, in the international organization, and in various nontraditional types of organization. Financial executives will find this volume a useful and frequently consulted resource.

A system for the field measurement of soil water movement (British Geomorphological Research Group. Technical bulletins)
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A system for the field measurement of soil water movement (British Geomorphological Research Group. Technical bulletins)
Brian J Knapp
Manufacturer: Geo Abstracts for the British Geomorphological Research Group
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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ASIN: 0902374036

Book Description

Facial nerve surgery inevitably leads to partial pareses, abnormally associated movements and pathologically altered reflexes. The reason for this "post-paralytic syndrome" is the misdirected reinnervation of targets, which consists of two major components. First, due to malfunctioning axonal guidance, a muscle gets reinnervated by a "foreign" axon, that has been misrouted along a "wrong" fascicle. Second, the supernumerary collateral branches emerging from all transected axons simultaneously innervate antagonistic muscles and cause severe impairment of their coordinated activity. Since it is hardly possible to influence the first major component and improve the guidance of several thousands axons, the authors concentrated on the second major component and tried to reduce the collateral axonal branching.

Book Description

Bose-Einstein condensation of excitons is a unique effect in which the electronic states of a solid can self-organize to acquire quantum phase coherence. The phenomenon is closely linked to Bose-Einstein condensation in other systems such as liquid helium and laser-cooled atomic gases. Covering theoretical aspects as well as recent experimental work, the book provides a comprehensive survey of the field. After introducing the relevant basic physics of excitons, the authors discuss exciton-phonon interactions as well as the behavior of biexcitons. They also cover exciton phase-transitions and give particular attention to nonlinear optical effects including the optical Stark effect and chaos in excitonic systems. The thermodynamics of equilibrium, quasiequilibrium, and nonequilibrium systems are examined in detail. Throughout, the authors interweave theoretical and experimental results. The book will be of great interest to graduate students and researchers in semiconductor and superconductor physics, quantum optics, and atomic physics.

Cassandra French's Finishing School for Boys: A Novel
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delightfully twisted - Garcia knows how to do things right

Funny and original

Way Better than Chick Lit

Wasn't worth finishing

One of the funniest...

Cassandra French's Finishing School for Boys: A Novel
Eric Garcia
Manufacturer: Avon A
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Hot and Sweaty Rex (Dinosaur Mafia Mysteries)

Matchstick Men: A Novel About Grifters with Issues

Casual Rex: A Novel

Anonymous Rex/Casual Rex Omnibus

Hot and Sweaty Rex: A Dinosaur Mafia Mystery (Dinosaur Mafia Mysteries)

ASIN: 0060781319
Release Date: 2005-06-28

Book Description

Cassandra French is a twenty-nine-year-old business affairs lawyer for a movie studio in Los Angeles. She has a creepy, platitudinous mother who is under house arrest for telemarketing fraud; and two best friends: studio exec Claire, who's sleeping with her shrink, and Lexi, a blond man-magnet of a yoga instructor. Oh, and she also has three handsome young men chained to cots in her basement. They're enrolled in Cassandra French's Finishing School For Boys.

Cassie has spent years in the dating hell that is Los Angeles, finding man after man who doesn't quite match up to her exacting standards. When Owen, a promising young man she meets at a baseball game, becomes a glassy eyed drunk by the seventh inning, she decides that all he needs is a little push in the right direction; after he passes out in her car, she brings him home, locks him up downstairs, and commences a year and a half of lessons on color coordination, behavior on dates, and ocassionally, sex. Owen proves an able student and is followed by two other likely candidates.

Things start to get a little complicated when Jason Kelly, Hollywood's biggest heartthrob, tries to seduce Cassie into fudging a contract issue on one of his movies. That's no way to treat a lady -- and Cassie has just the cure.

With an endearingly amoral heroine, a pitch-perfect L.A. setting, and a cast of unforgettably warped characters, Cassandra French's Finishing School for Boys is a shockingly funny, original, dead on satire of the dating scene.

Customer Reviews:

delightfully twisted - Garcia knows how to do things right.......2007-09-12

Cassandra French - Cassie Bear to her mother - works as a counsel in business affairs in a movie studio in LA. Her best friends - Claire and Lexi - often go with her out on the town where they try to find the perfect boy for the evening. Oh, and by the way, Cassie has three young men chained up in her basement while she puts them through her Finishing School to be the perfect men.

Written in the form of a journal, Cassie comes across as delightfully amoral and at the same time self-deprecating. She does not at all feel that what she is doing is wrong and, in fact, feels that she is doing the men and the world a huge favor. Of course, when she takes an opportunity and adds a movie star - Jason Kelly - to the School, things become decidedly more complicated.

I loved Garcia's Dinosaur Mafia books, and this book is again a great bit of fiction - romantic comedy, maybe? It is hard to decide exactly what genre it fits into. At any rate, I strongly recommend it for anyone who likes a good laugh - it's a riot.

Funny and original.......2007-07-26

Cassandra French is your typical twenty-something lawyer working in Los Angeles. She spends time with her friends, has a crazy mother (hers is on house arrest), a budding romance with a club owner, and hasn't been to the gym in weeks.

Except, she has one dirty little secret.

Tired of dating the same Neanderthals over and over again, Cassandra decides to do something about it. One afternoon, in a flash of inspiration, she kidnaps a 260-pound electrician who comes on to her at a baseball game, hoping to shape him into a man who will function properly in society. Thus, her Finishing School is born. Thngs come to a climax when she kidnaps Academy Award-winning actor Jason Kelley. Once you get past the fact that this book is supposed to be satire, its actually pretty funny and enjoyable. Although Cassie's friend Lexi is completely annoying, and Cassie's behavior bizarre, to say the least, our narrator has a lot of funny lines. Highly recommended.

Way Better than Chick Lit.......2007-06-26

This book was enough to give me ideas about locking Eric Garcia in my basement and chaining him to a word processor so he'll write more books. A writer with his immense talent should surely have written more than five by now. I'm a huge fan of his Rex series, and I absolutely loved this book. Not too many men can write a female character this well, that alone earning him some respect. And the story was great, too.

Cassandra French is a lawyer in business affairs at a studio. Her best friend Claire is an executive at Fox, and their trio is completed by Lexi, a thin, sexy yoga instructor. Cassie's life seems fairly normal, except for her housecoat-wearing mother who accosts strangers on the street and asks them to call Cassie on her behalf, since she has been banned from using telephones as part of her sentence for telemarketing fraud. Cassie's one other little quirk is the three men she keeps chained in her basement. Owen, Alan, and Daniel are all promising young men she met who all had small, fixable flaws that Cassie convinced herself she could correct through a program of positive reinforcement. One by one she added them to her Finishing School, and things were going just swell until she impulsively adds a fourth student, a famous Hollywood star. Things start spiraling out of control, leaving Cassie no choice but to call on Claire and Lexi to help, but things get even worse when her friends take so quickly to the idea of Cassie's Finishing School. I had no idea where any of this was going or how it was going to end, so I kept eagerly plowing through to the exceptional conclusion.

This book is a fun, lighthearted romp through the twistedly sane mind of Cassandra French. I found myself laughing out loud throughout. Eric Garcia writes great books, and I wish he'd get busy and write more.

Wasn't worth finishing.......2006-08-30

I did the same thing as many other people: started reading it, didn't like it, and skipped to the end, hoping for an outcome I didn't find.

I don't often give books up without finishing them. This was one of the few.

Oh, one another thing, the book jacket, which I didn't read before picking up the book, describes Cassandra as "endearingly amoral." For me, those just aren't two words that go together.

If you like characters who behave selfishly with no consequences, this book is for you.

And as for the laughs? I read about 150 pages before I skipped to the end. I didn't laugh once. Not in my head, and not out loud, either.

One of the funniest..........2006-08-15

and most creative novels I've read recently! Loved the male take on chic-lit novels. Hilarious concept!

Cassandra French's Finishing School for Boys: A Novel

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Cassandra French's Finishing School for Boys: A Novel
Eric Garcia
Manufacturer: Regan Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OEZG06

The Name of War: King Philip's War and the Origins of American Identity
Average customer rating:

how we came to be us

a misleading polemic, not a history

worth reading

And this mess won a Bancroft?

Not a history

The Name of War: King Philip's War and the Origins of American Identity
Jill Lepore
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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King Philip's War: The History and Legacy of America's Forgotten Conflict

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ASIN: 0375702628
Release Date: 1999-04-27

Amazon.com

In 1675, tensions between Native Americans and colonists residing in New England erupted into the brutal conflict that has come to be known as King Philip's War, named after Philip, the leader of the Wampanoag Indians. Jill Lepore's book is an evocative and insightful study of America's recollection and understanding of one of the bloodiest wars to take place on its soil.

Lepore, an assistant professor of history at Boston University, depicts the horrors of this conflict, from gruesome tortures to the massacre of women and children, so explicitly barbaric that the term "war" barely applies. An underlying theme of her narrative is that this unfortunate battle only served to strengthen the boundaries of cultural difference between the Native Americans and colonists, setting a rigid foundation for the many years of enmity between Indians and Anglos that would ensue.

Skillfully drawing on accounts of substance from participants on both sides, Lepore presents a balanced overview of the causes and effects of this conflict and the reverberations it would have over the centuries to follow, ultimately revealing that how a past event is interpreted is often just as important as the event itself.

Book Description

Winner of the the 1998 Ralph Waldo Emerson Award of the Phi Beta Kappa Society

King Philip's War, the excruciating racial war--colonists against Indians--that erupted in New England in 1675, was, in proportion to population, the bloodiest in American history. Some even argued that the massacres and outrages on both sides were too horrific to "deserve the name of a war."

It all began when Philip (called Metacom by his own people), the leader of the Wampanoag Indians, led attacks against English towns in the colony of Plymouth. The war spread quickly, pitting a loose confederation of southeastern Algonquians against a coalition of English colonists. While it raged, colonial armies pursued enemy Indians through the swamps and woods of New England, and Indians attacked English farms and towns from Narragansett Bay to the Connecticut River Valley. Both sides, in fact, had pursued the war seemingly without restraint, killing women and children, torturing captives, and mutilating the dead. The fighting ended after Philip was shot, quartered, and beheaded in August 1676.

The war's brutality compelled the colonists to defend themselves against accusations that they had become savages. But Jill Lepore makes clear that it was after the war--and because of it--that the boundaries between cultures, hitherto blurred, turned into rigid ones. King Philip's War became one of the most written-about wars in our history, and Lepore argues that the words strengthened and hardened feelings that, in turn, strengthened and hardened the enmity between Indians and Anglos. She shows how, as late as the nineteenth century, memories of the war were instrumental in justifying Indian removals--and how in our own century that same war has inspired Indian attempts to preserve "Indianness" as fiercely as the early settlers once struggled to preserve their Englishness.

Telling the story of what may have been the bitterest of American conflicts, and its reverberations over the centuries, Lepore has enabled us to see how the ways in which we remember past events are as important in their effect on our history as were the events themselves.

From the Hardcover edition.

Customer Reviews:

how we came to be us.......2007-06-26

One of the most interesting, thought-provoking books I have read. The scholarship is impressive, the prose lucid, the presentation of a conflict that has more than two sides is commendably fair. The book is a real eye-opener. And it has the excitement of a detective story, as Lepore tracks changes in white American attitudes toward native Americans through the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. I read this alongside Philbrick's recent bestseller Mayflower, which gives a very good running accout of King Philip's War, and look forward to reading other books about this crucial time in the country's history, a time when piety and violence started their enduring relationship.

a misleading polemic, not a history.......2006-11-26

It's said that the second historian was the first revisionist. In other words, to some extent any and every telling of history reveals as much about the historian as it does the history. But for as much as the telling of history is always interpretive, it is also entirely possible for an historian to confront, recognize, and largely neutralize her own interpretive biases; while she need not abandon or apologize for her point of view, nevertheless it is her responsibility to present all the relevant historical facts -- especially those that might cast doubt upon her interpretations and agendas -- and then argue her case with all of the relevant information on the table. That is the difference between interpretive history and deceptive or misleading polemic.

Lepore accomplishes only polemic here, then, in that she presents as supporting evidence for her biases only her own highly questionable interpretations of the semantics of the colonists' own writings on King Philip's War. She is hermeneutically daft, asserting a self-contained truth within those writings that is simply absurd. Texts (especially in the case of the very personal diary entries, private letters, and firsthand accounts that constitute the overwhelming majority of the colonists' writings on King Phillip's War) do not and cannot contain some absolute, inescapable meaning that imposes itself upon the reader. Texts communicate their real meaning only when referred to the indigenous contexts (social, political, religious, philosophical, linguistic, psychological, etc.) that produced them; when removed from those contexts and read in ignorance of them, the reader must of necessity substitute the contexts and agendas of her own experience for the authentic contexts, so that the texts will appear to have radically different meanings than they really do -- they will seem to mean whatever the interpreter wants them to mean.

And what does Lepore want the Puritans' writings to mean? What is her agenda here? Essentially, it is portray the Puritan colonists of 17th century Massachusetts as despicable hypocrites. Now, as I said, if that's her agenda and her bias, that's fine; but it is acceptable for her to present the conclusions born of that agenda and bias as history only on the condition that they are argued in light of all the evidence that might call them into question. Lepore fails on this count. Again, she confines the supporting evidence she provides for her theses to her own highly speculative interpretations of the colonists' writings; as other reviewers have noted here, then, this book is much closer to deconstructionist literary criticism than it is to history. She misses the forest for the trees: she makes no attempt to check her interpretive biases against the broader historical narrative that is the context of King Phillip's War.

For example, in 1622 the natives around the Jamestown settlements in Virginia attempted to eradicate the presence of the colonists, through a surprise act of genocide that followed eight years of peaceful coexistence. The attack ultimately resulted in the deaths of two-thirds of the roughly 1200 colonists in Virginia at the time, and sent a powerful shock through the other New World colonies and their groups of sponsors across the Atlantic. The natives committed their genocide at Jamestown only two years after the Plymouth colony was founded; it is unquestionable, then, that from the earliest years onward the Massachusetts colonists' attitudes toward their native neighbors would have been colored (and rightly so) by a great deal of suspicion and mistrust in light of the knowledge of what the Virginia natives had done to the Jamestown settlers -- only fifty years before King Phillip attempted essentially the same thing. Yet Lepore never once mentions the genocide in Virginia, and does not recognize its immense significance for the relations of the English and the natives in Massachusetts fifty years later.

To name another example, Lepore offers no analysis whatsoever of the nature of the Puritan faith of the Massachusetts colonists, and how that faith affected their conduct in the war. She does mention their faith in a non-specific way, when it serves to imply a monstrous hypocrisy on the part of the colonists; but never is an astute or sympathetic understanding of their religion presented, and since the early Massachusetts colonies were communities of an almost monastic fervor, devotion, and asceticism, Lepore simply ignores an immensely important factor in their motives and reasoning during King Phillip's War. In its place, she asserts that the colonists fought to preserve their "Englishness;" in support of this idea, she presents some diary entries and editorials of the day in which the colonists wrote of their fear of becoming like the savages, should their common life in the New World continue in the direction they thought it was headed. But it seems perfectly clear to me that Lepore has grossly misinterpreted those writings. The colonists did not actually think that their assimilation into the native culture and way of life was real possibility: the warning that they might "become like the savages" was not a cultural apprehension of theirs, but rather the sort of hyperbole so often used in Christian homilies and catechisms and pastoral essays intended to exhort the faithful. The Massachusetts Puritans were not afraid of becoming Indians. They were afraid of losing their faith, losing the Christian path through life that they had sacrificed so much to preserve. They were afraid of any compromise or waning of the Christian zeal and austerity of their near-monastic lives. After all, it was in order to preserve the Christian life that they had left England in the first place, decades earlier: they had first settled in Holland after the English anathematized them, and then left for the New World when they saw their faith diluted by worldly comforts and distractions while living on the Continent. So to me, the idea that they fought the natives in King Phillip's War to defend their "Englishness" is simply preposterous. Englishness was something they had willingly left behind to purse their religion, and played no more of a role in most of their lives and motives than that of superficial, sentimental cultural orientation. I think it's deceptive for Lepore even to pose the question, "why were the English really fighting?" as though it requires some subtle expert analysis: the colonists fought the natives because the natives were trying to kill them... it's as simple as that.

There are many more examples of Lepore's highly selective consideration of the historical record, and highly questionable reasoning and interpretation. But it is not possible to argue them satisfactorily in a review such as this, of course: to respond adequately I would have to write a book of my own (as I've already made a good beginning of doing), taking Lepore point by point. One thing I'll grant her is that she presents her source material openly, with no attempt to conceal certain passages that might be interpreted any number of other ways than those she has chosen. But again, the biases and misunderstanding that a 21st century American will inevitably bring to any reading of texts produced by 17th century Puritans render any approach to understand their conduct of King Phillip's War solely by a consideration of those documents a myopic, naïve, misguided effort, and doomed to failure.

worth reading.......2005-10-03

Life in 17C North America involved war -- a brutal reality dutifully recorded from contemporary sources by the author and a very few others. It's a saga that permeates the foundation of this nation, and demands examination.

All were perpetrators, all were victims. Who was right?

This work is a valuable account of King Phillip's War (1675). Read it and judge for yourself.

Of course some of us read the book shortly after it was published in HC in 1998. Thus my remarks. I note other reviews, many critical, tie this work to completely unrelated savagery that occured after 1998. They seem to be frantically trying to revise history.

This book has nothing to do with 9/11/01. Those who interpret it as such should seek a competent analyist and a suitable drug regimen.

And this mess won a Bancroft?.......2005-07-03

The Bancroft is the history profession's Pulitzer, so I was looking forward to being edified. What I got instead was an impenetrable tome consisting mainly of fashionable deconstructionist babble about how war is defined among different cultures. I read and read and never found a coherent narrative about what this war was supposed to be about or what it had to do with American identity.

Perhaps this "language of academe" impressed the Bancroft committee, itself made up of pedants, but to the common reader, whom the academy putatively serves, this thing is worthless. I have the feeling that these guys began reading, and when their eyes started to glaze over they said, "My kind of history!"

Not a history.......2004-10-14

For those interested in the story of this war, go elsewhere. It is not here.
The book is a speculation on the motivation of participants in the cultural conflict, and its consequences. I did not like the frequent suppositions-often they seem to be a figment of the authors imagination though no doubt founded in her vast knowledge of the subject. It just doesn't hold up as an historian's analysis.

Book Description

The rise and decline of witchcraft around the world, as seen through the perceptive eyes of an anthropologist and historian well-acquainted with traditional Basque and Spanish folklore--which inspired this fascinating, macabre, and chilling book. Beginning with an analysis of the basic mentality of those who have believed in or practiced the magic arts, and covering witchcraft's startling rise throughout Europe in the Middle Ages, it launches into an absorbing and original study that upsets many of the popular notions about the nature and history of the subject. Includes much enthralling material from art, literature, and ecclesiastical and legal documents, as well as discerning psychological studies of witches and their accusers.

Customer Reviews:

Extremely interesting and well documented.......2007-05-27

What is a witch? Well as the book will explain in great detail, that the answer depends on the time and place one might be thinking about. There has always been a close relation between religion and magic as both systems claim to have a special connection with forces or energies which are beyond a person sphere of influence. Priest and witches will offer to their followers their special services to make the believer wishes come true by prayers and by submitting to powers outside their grasp.

Before Christianity the image of the witch or the sorcerer, was not particularly separated from that of a priest. However, after Christianity gains political power the "witches" become prosecuted as they are the last remains of paganism (must of them use to praise the forces of nature and follow fertility rites) and if they claim to have "powers" those must be diabolic. Why? as it needs to establish that Jesus is the only source of "legitimate" power to provide a solution to a person needs and desires.

It's fascinating to see how by means of propaganda both Catholics and protestants create a whole set of images and beliefs so that the failures and frustrations of everyday life must be answered not by a useless god or his son but by poor and uneducated women, and then how when reason starts to prevail over superstition the belief in the powers of the witches begins to fade.

An acedemic approach to the subject of witchcraft.......2006-11-29

I found this book entirely informative filled with facts and beliefs of witchcraft throughout the world. Without all the fluff and "new age" bright blessings this is what the real wica and witchcraft is about. I doubt seriously if those who claim an understanding of the subject will notice the difference in the term. A throughly good read for someone who truely wants to learn about the subject with more meat on the bone and less hype. Baroja talks about the nature of the witch from the earliest historical period through the middle ages to the present and side steps the quamire of "new age" hokum to present an illuminating account gathered from art,literature,ecclesiastical and historical-legal documents. His presentation is thankfully free of the "blessed bes" and Dianic tripe and is a refreshing read in this age of socalled spell books an fabricated wicca.

Assigned reading in college........2005-08-18

I wrote a review of this book, but when I tried to edit it, I was accused of performing an illegal act, and the review was wiped out. I was trying to get it back, but apparently cannot. Ken

Excellent.......2003-01-03

Excellent, thorough, scholarly work. Of special interest to those interested in cultural
anthropology.

the world of the witches.......2001-06-02

this book gives an overview of witchcraft in many forms and how it has been viewed over the centuries by differing religius sects. a long read but good to balance out the positive and negative views of outsiders to the craft.

The Feynman Lectures on Physics: Commemorative Issue, Volume 2: Mainly Electomagnetism and Matter (Feynman Lectures on Physics)
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It worths

It's not just about physics

A must-read for students and professors

Too much for me

Three Not-So-Easy Pieces

The Feynman Lectures on Physics: Commemorative Issue, Volume 2: Mainly Electomagnetism and Matter (Feynman Lectures on Physics)
Richard P. Feynman , Robert B. Leighton , and Matthew Sands
Manufacturer: Addison Wesley
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0201510049

Book Description

The Feynman Lectures on Physics: Commemorative Issue, Three Volume Set.

Feynman's effective classroom style remains intact in these volumes, a valuable work by a remarkable educator.
The volumes are an edited version of Richard Feynman's lectures, taped and transcribed specifically for the books.
The three volume commemorative issue is either available hardbound and packaged in a specially designed slipcase, or in a paperbound edition.

This three volume work was originally designed for a two-year introductory physics course given at the California Institute of Technology — a course designed to take advantage of readers' increasing mathematical prowess and to provide a more comprehensive view of modern-day physics. It is a rigorous undertaking that resulted in a classic reference work for anyone interested in physics.

Customer Reviews:

It worths.......2007-08-06

The collection is one of the best books available for basic physics nowadays. The commemorative issue is even better. Indispensable for physicists and students with interests in this area

It's not just about physics.......2007-05-25

The joy of these books is not that you learn physics from them. What these books offer is Feynman's contagious wonder about things, his command of the material, and his unique way of presenting complicated ideas from a perspective understandable even to laymen. In the preface, Feynman says that the lectures are "a failure" but that is from the point of view of preparing students to pass examinations. From our point of view, they are THE treasure of Feynman's legacy. It ranks with the greatest science books of all time.

If you aren't that familiar with Feynman, start with Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman. I read that book over and over until I almost have it memorized, funny, profound, and beautiful book. Then Six Easy Pieces presents a few of the less mathematical and more easily understandable lectures. Then for the meat, come here, you won't be disappointed unless you are preparing for a sophomore physics examination.

A must-read for students and professors.......2007-03-13

Intended at students, the feynman lectures in stanford were much attended by researchers. The same holds for the book. It provides a new way to teach physics that has kept its full originality. Not the least, it is highly pedagogical, introducing every new subject step by step. Emphasis is on the physics reasoning more than on the maths. As such, it is a great source of inspiration to physicists and physics teachers.

Too much for me.......2007-02-15

In his Preface, Feynman admits that these lectures were aimed at "the most intelligent students" coming out of high school into Caltech. He also admits that many students had trouble with the content judging from their performance on the examinations and said that his system of lectures is "a failure". I agree with Feynman. These lectures are very hard to understand. Partly the lectures, prepared in early 1960s, suffer from being rather dated. Mostly though this material is presented in a confusing way, with lots of complicated mathematics that often hinders comprehension. I recommend getting a basic college textbook instead (Physics for Scientists and Engineers by Wolfson and Pasachoff is a good choice).

Three Not-So-Easy Pieces.......2007-01-12

If you're a layman looking for a very basic introduction to modern physics, then you should consider the (extremely) abridged version of these works: "Six Easy Pieces." (A classic in its own right.) If, however, you are truly willing to put the requisite time and energy into truly understanding the differences between Relativity Theory, Quantum Mechanics, and Newtonian Physics, then you cannot ask for a better introduction.

After thirty years, Feynman's works are only just now beginning to show their age. The absence of recent developments in Superstring theory, M theory, and other theories that have slightly altered the field is becoming more noticeable, but Feynman's work will remain relevant for quite some time whether we're living in a world of 10 dimensions or 11.

For an equally engaging work on these new theories, you might consider following these volumes with "A First Course in String Theory"by Barton Zwiebach.

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