Light and Matter

Prof Benjamin Crowell, Fullerton College

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http://www.lightandmatter.com/area1.html

A series of short textbooks on different physics subjects. One of the most popular free textbooks. Due to the number of volumes and their size, I am not mirroring them yet, but I plan to later. Visit the website to download PDFs, get teacher materials, an answer checker, and much more. One of my top 5 favorite books on the site, and one of the inspirations for TBR. Highly Recommended!

The books have been adopted at ten colleges and universities, and 14 high schools.

Since I originally wrote this post, Ben has added several new books to the site, including:

From the site: “When you read a mystery novel, you know in advance what structure to expect: a crime, some detective work, and finally the unmasking of the evildoer. Likewise when Charlie Parker plays a blues, your ear expects to hear certain landmarks of the form regardless of how wild some of his notes are. But surveys of physics students usually show that they have worse attitudes about the subject after instruction than before, and their comments often boil down to a complaint that the person who strung the topics together had not learned what Agatha Christie and Charlie Parker knew intuitively about form and structure: students become bored and demoralized because the “march through the topics” lacks a coherent story line.

The Light and Matter series of introductory physics textbooks, as implied by its title, has a story line built around light and matter. The outlines of Discover Physics and Simple Nature are based on conservation laws. ”

Link to website

Available for purchase? Yes, see website for pricing.

Copyright Type: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike

| posted Nov 9, 11:04 PM by Jason Turgeon

  1. The language is simple, yet it conveys many big ideas. I always take it on faith that textbooks do not have to be difficult. This series prove my point. I love them.


    — Toan Nguyen    Dec 14, 11:23 AM    #

  2. I have only 3 words to say “SIMPLY AMAZING BOOKS”.

    If u want to start learning physics from ZERO to PERFECT YOUR BASICS…kumble2904 prescribes u these books HAVING READ THEM MYSELF.

    Simple language – best examples – Great Ideas which make u think and question! 9/10


    — kumble2904    Jan 9, 03:32 AM    #

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