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Rating: 
Summary: Good basic overview
Review: Good basic overview of basic physics concepts (and the math behind them). Practice problems are useful as well.
Rating: 
Summary: a bit thick if this isn't your main learning tool
Review: I purchased this book because I was taking physics in high school and also wanted some extra help. But this book is a bit thick for that - it's even bigger than my school's textbook.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent home-schooling text
Review: My two sons both used this book to help them understand their high school physics. It fills in some of the gaps that other books leave. The approach is unique, especially because the author lets the reader know that study is necessary in order to learn any subject. The text questions are helpful.
Rating: 
Summary: Physics RE-mystified...
Review: Ok,what initially looks like a promising book turns out to be another dead loss in the world of "beginning/idiot/dummies" style books.A basic understanding of Physics requires a comprehensive understanding of math. Mr Gibilisco provides nearly 170 pages of math review which consists of either too much information on a very basic subject (such as different notation for exponents) or too little in more complicated areas (such as vector equations). Some two/two-and-a-half pages are committed to how a calculator or scientist might express an exponent and yet not even a page is dedicated to the basics of vector arithmetic (there are pages of information on vectors but on the whole it is purely a summary form of what constitutes various vectors; this part of the book has no worked examples). The summary section on math is fine as long as you pretty much know it already. If you do then you do not need to read it anyway. If you don't it simply is not upto scratch; hence, why bother? The books general tone is to talk down to people, especially those whom are of a mathematical bent, with constant little digs against those whom practice theoretical math and those that practice "real" science. Many of the techniques taught here are simply the way the author works out problems, not necessarily the way that those problems are worked out conventionally. Do I hear you say I like that idea? Fine. But you must tell people how to do it PROPERLY before you show them the WORKAROUND. The classic example here is how the author shows us to deal with scientific notation (his workaround is to work out everything in longhand, which was exactly what scientific notation is there to help us NOT to do). In short if you are great at math the book is probably a good find, if - like me - you are not good at math, then don't expect to find an efficient tutor here. Find a math book that covers the basics first and then come back. Go elsewhere if you are a math dummy!
Rating:
Summary: Not a self teaching guide.
Review: This book has a lot of material that makes it worthy to be called a reference book, but as a self teaching guide it really comes up short. There is quite a bit of math (which is good in a physics book), but too little in the way of helping someone new to physics really understand the concepts. I considered returning this book for a refund, but decided to hang on to it for future reference. I think it will be useful to me after I've used some other book(s) to help be learn the fundamentals.
Rating:
Summary: One of the great DeMYSTiFieD series
Review: This book is much more than a catchy title or a glossy cover. I have read the real thing that can get you bogged down in detail and on the other end of the spectrum when trying to describe physics without math only get gobbledygook.
The book is well designed and has a chapter zero for those of us that need a redresser on just enough maths to make the descriptions make sense. However I found some items that they never covered in class. The math problems in class were always sanitized not to always have and answer and not allow you to ask odd questions that the instructor so not prepaid to answer. Not being a math book (they do have Demystified books on math) you get just what you need and forget the rest. In just a few pages you cover years of math but it is so much clearer than the stuff you had before. There is a good section on vectors alone that describe:
Vectors in two dimensions
Vectors in three dimensions
Multiplication by scalar
Commutativity of addition
Commutativity of vector-scalar multiplication
Commutativity of dot product
Negative commutativity of cross product
Associativity of addition
Associativity of vector-scalar multiplication
Dristributivity of scalar multiplication over scalar addition
Dristributivity of scalar multiplication over vector addition
Dristributivity of dot product over vector addition
Dristributivity of dot cross over vector addition
Dot product of cross products
So you can see that just about every base is covered as far as math before starting to demystify physics.
No book can cover everything but this one comes pretty close to describing all the terms and actually showing you how they work.
The book seems to be really heavily waited toward electro magnetism; probably because the author Stan Gibilisco has more books in that field. When you have finished this book you can hold up your end in a physics discussion or Relativity Theory for that matter.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent home-schooling text
Review: This book is unique because of its "Part Zero" section on mathematics. I already knew this stuff (I learned it in high school) but the author says "Take what you can use and skip the rest." The quizzes and tests are in-depth and cover the subject well. I like this book. It does not assume I am stupid and it does not talk down.
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