Physics for Scientists and Engineers: A Strategic Approach with Modern Physics, Global Edition, 5th edition

Published by Pearson (August 24, 2022) © 2023

  • Randall D Knight California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo

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  • 25 Video Tutor Solutions
  • 140 new physics problems
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Title overview

For courses in introductory calculus-based physics.

Physics for Scientists and Engineers: A Strategic Approach with Modern Physics incorporates Physics Education Research and cognitive science best practices that encourage conceptual development, problem-solving skill acquisition, and visualisation. Knight stresses qualitative reasoning through physics principles before formalising physics mathematically, developing student problem-solving skills with a systematic, scaffolded approach. The text presents a finely tuned, practical introduction to physics with problems that relate physics to everyday life and includes models, modeling, and advanced topics.

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Key features

  • Model boxes enhance the text's emphasis on modelling - analysing a complex, real-world situation in terms of simple but reasonable idealisations that can be applied over and over in solving problems. These fundamental simplifications are developed in the text and then deployed more explicitly in the worked examples, helping students to recognise when and how to use recurring models (such as motion with constant acceleration or the photon model of light).
  • Looking Back Pointers enable students to look back at a previous chapter when it's important to review concepts. Pointers provide the specific section to consult at the exact point in the text where they need to use this material. 
  • Visual chapter summaries consolidate understanding by providing each concept in words, math, and figures and organising these into a vertical hierarchy - from General Principles (top) to Applications (bottom). 
  • Advanced topics as optional sections further expands instructors' options. Topics include rocket propulsion, gyroscopes and precession, the wave equation (including for electromagnetic waves), the speed of sound in gases, and more details on the interference of light. 
  • Tactics Boxes give step-by-step procedures for developing specific skills (drawing free-body diagrams, using ray tracing, etc.).

New to this edition

  • 4-step problem-solving approach shifts to Model/Visualise/Solve/Review, using a final step of 'Review' rather than 'Assess' to better reflect the content of the final step. This approach provides a framework throughout the book, using the 4-step framework with detailed problem-solving strategies for different topics and types of problems. Tactics Boxes give step-by-step procedures for developing specific skills (drawing free-body diagrams, using ray tracing, etc.).
  • Worked examples follow the 4-step strategy and include careful explanations of the underlying, and often unstated, reasoning with new examples that show how things work to relate physics to everyday life.
  • Enhanced Chapter Previews address the questions students are most likely to ask themselves while studying the material for the first time. Questions cover the important ideas, and provide a big-picture overview of the chapter's key principles.

Key features

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  • Pearson eTextbook features clear and engaging content from experienced authors. Each eTextbook is designed to help students reach their potential with a mix of learning features including problem-solving exercises, reflection questions and real-world examples.
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About Mastering Physics

Mastering Physics extends learning and provides students with a platform to practice, learn, and apply knowledge outside of the classroom. 
  • 20% Enhanced End-of-Chapter Questions plus 300 End-of-Chapter Questions are coded with wrong-answer specific feedback. Significantly revised end-of-chapter problem sets include more challenging problems that expand the range of physics and math skills students use to solve problems - and a new icon for calculus-based problems is included.
  • 10 Reading Questions per chapter provide students with wrong-answer specific feedback and can be assigned in Mastering Physics. Questions check students' familiarity with key concepts, prompting them to do their assigned reading before class. Additional open-ended questions help students identify the topics they found most difficult and assist instructors with 'just-in-time' teaching.
  • Book-specific Tutorials specific to each chapter of Physics for Scientists and Engineers are assignable in Mastering Physics.
  • Interactive Prelecture Videos provide an introduction to key topics with embedded assessment to help students prepare before lecture and to help professors identify student misconceptions. Animated whiteboard prelecture videos specific to Physics for Scientists and Engineers are expanded to provide two semesters of content for instructors who teach an active classroom. 
  • Quantitative Prelecture Videos helps students learn how to solve problems for a specific concept. 
  • 140 new passage problems and physics problems in a biology context are assignable in Mastering Physics.
  • Lab Resources give you the ability to assign activities to help students prepare and succeed in the lab and are now available as a book source in the Mastering item library.
  • 25 Video Tutor Solutions (VTS) for Physics for Scientists and Engineers walk students through the problem-solving process, provide links to relevant content in the text, and can be accessed using embedded links in the eText. Select VTSs are provided as optional links in related end-of-chapter problems, available in the Study Area of Mastering Physics, and assignable in Mastering.
  • PhET Tutorials are interactive simulations that help students make connections between real-life phenomena and the underlying physics,
  • Dynamic Study Modules are specific to Physics for Scientists and Engineers. The assignable modules pose a series of question sets about a course topic. The questions adapt to each student's performance and offer personalised, targeted feedback to help them master key concepts. As a result, students build the confidence they need to deepen their understanding, participate meaningfully, and perform better. 
  • Ready-to-Go Study Tools in the Mastering Physics Study Area help students master the toughest topics (as identified by professors and fellow students completing homework and practicing for exams).
  • Pearson eText is an easy-to-use digital textbook available within Mastering. It lets students read, highlight, take notes, and review key vocabulary all in one place, even when offline. 
  • Access reading analytics. Use the dashboard to gain insight into how students are working in their eText to plan more effective instruction in and out of class.

Table of contents

Physics for Scientists and Engineers: A Strategic Approach with Modern Physics: (Chapters 1-42)

  • Part 1: Newton's Laws
  • Concepts of Motion
  • Kinematics in One Dimension
  • Vectors and Coordinate Systems
  • Kinematics in Two Dimensions
  • Force and Motion
  • Dynamics I: Motion Along a Line
  • Newton's Third Law
  • Dynamics II: Motion in a Plane
  • Part 2: Conservation Laws
  • Work and Kinetic Energy
  • Interactions and Potential Energy
  • Impulse and Momentum
  • Part 3: Applications of Newtonian Mechanics
  • Rotation of a Rigid Body
  • Newton's Theory of Gravity
  • Fluids and Elasticity
  • Part 4: Oscillations and Waves
  • Oscillations
  • Traveling Waves
  • Superposition
  • Part 5: Thermodynamics
  • A Macroscopic Description of Matter
  • Work, Heat, and the First Law of Thermodynamics
  • The Micro/Macro Connection
  • Heat Engines and Refrigerators
  • Part 6: Electricity and Magnetism
  • Electric Charges and Forces
  • The Electric Field
  • Gauss's Law
  • The Electric Potential
  • Potential and Field
  • Current and Resistance
  • Fundamentals of Circuits
  • The Magnetic Field
  • Electromagnetic Induction
  • Electromagnetic Fields and Waves
  • AC Circuits
  • Part 7: Optics
  • Wave Optics
  • Ray Optics
  • Optical Instruments
  • Part 8: Relativity and Quantum Physics
  • Relativity
  • The Foundations of Modern Physics
  • Quantization
  • Wave Functions and Uncertainty
  • One-Dimensional Quantum Mechanics
  • Atomic Physics
  • Nuclear Physics
  • Appendix A Mathematics Review
  • Appendix B Periodic Table of Elements
  • Appendix C Atomic and Nuclear Data
  • Answers to Stop to Think Questions and Odd-Numbered Exercises and Problems

Author bios

Randy Knight taught introductory physics for thirty-two years at Ohio State University and California Polytechnic State University, where he is Professor Emeritus of Physics. Professor Knight received a PhD in physics from the University of California, Berkeley, and was a post-doctoral fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics before joining the faculty at Ohio State University. A growing awareness of the importance of research in physics education led first to Physics for Scientists and Engineers: A Strategic Approach and later College Physics: A Strategic Approach. Professor Knight's research interests are in the fields of laser spectroscopy and environmental science.

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