Notable items from Bookstore

1. New Head First books

Visited bookstore again and saw a suprising new Head First books
I saw Head First Physics and Head First Statistics! This series of book has extended beyond computer programming into general sciences.

This unique series is like those For Dummies books, filled with interesting people icons and handwritten notes and often try to be amusing.

However, I don't like this approach very much. I perfer a slightly more serious approach, in programming as well as science.

2.
Guide to Essential Math: A Review for Physics, Chemistry and Engineering Students


What comes to mind when you hear "Essential Math"? This really mean different thing to different people, depending on your age and level.
It could be basic arithmetic if you are an elementary school student or some algebra/geometry things if you are in high school.
Of course for most people, it is +, -, *, / and %, fraction and decimal. (That's it)

This book is for college engineering students. The introduction is most interesting.

So the author was a new professor who couldn't wait to share with his students the profound subject of quantum physics. After a few minutes in his lecture a student
raised hand and asked: what is this curly thing? The object in question was the partial derivative symbol: the cursive d. (I like to call it the flipped-6). Then the author found out some of his students don't know some very basic things such as 1/(x+y) is not 1/x + 1/y,
ln (x + y) also is not ln (x) + ln(y), so he decided to write a book.

The back cover features a young man in a scared facial expression with equations printed all over the place in the foreground.
I recognized some of these equations... Ah, the limit definition of the derivative is there.

The author seems to be frustrated because the students should know the basics.
How come students don't retain any knowledge?
How do these students even get to those advanced science/engineering classes?

I am glad I know a good portion of the math featured in that book. But I am still not ready to tackle quantum physics (and I am not going to).