A research-driven approach, fine-tuned for even greater ease-of-use and student success

For the Fourth Edition of Physics for Scientists and Engineers, Knight continues to build on strong research-based foundations with fine-tuned and streamlined content, hallmark features, and an even more robust MasteringPhysics program, taking student learning to a new level. By extending problem-solving guidance to include a greater emphasis on modeling and significantly revised and more challenging problem sets, students gain confidence and skills in problem solving. A modified Table of Contents and the addition of advanced topics now accommodate different teaching preferences and course structures.

MasteringPhysics™ not included. Students, if MasteringPhysics is a recommended/mandatory component of the course, please ask your instructor for the correct ISBN and course ID. MasteringPhysics should only be purchased when required by an instructor. Instructors, contact your Pearson representative for more information.

MasteringPhysicsfrom Pearson is the leading online homework, tutorial, and assessment system, designed to improve results by engaging students before, during, and after class with powerful content. Instructors ensure students arrive ready to learn by assigning educationally effective content before class, and encourage critical thinking and retention with in-class resources such as Learning Catalytics.

Features
Gives instructors greater choice and flexibility
NEW! Chapter ordering changes allow instructors to more easily organize content as needed to accommodate labs, schedules, and different teaching styles.Work and energy are now covered before momentum, oscillations are grouped with mechanical waves, and optics appears after electricity and magnetism.
NEW! Addition of 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.

Builds problem-solving skills and confidence, using an explicit, methodical, and consistent approach.
NEW! Model boxes enhance the text’s emphasis on modeling—analyzing a complex, real-world situation in terms of simple but reasonable idealizations 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 recognize when and how to use recurring models (such as motion with constant acceleration or the photon model of light).
A consistent 4-step approach provides a problem-solving framework throughout the book (and all supplements): students learn the importance of making assumptions (in the MODEL step) and gathering information and making sketches (in the VISUALIZE step) before treating the problem mathematically (SOLVE) and then analyzing their results (ASSESS).
Detailed problem-solving strategies for different topics and categories of problems (circular-motion problems, calorimetry problems, etc.) are developed throughout the book, each one built on the above 4-step framework.
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.
The Student Workbook provides straightforward confidence- and skill-building exercises, bridging the gap between worked examples and end-of-chapter problems. Worksheets following the MODEL/VISUALIZE/SOLVE/ASSESS framework provide tear-out templates for students to follow when practicing solving dynamics, energy, and momentum problems.

Promotes a deeper and better-connected understanding, using a structured learning path and an inductive approach with exceptional clarity.
REVISED! Enhanced Chapter Previews have been reconceived to 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.
NEW! 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.
UPDATED! Focused Part Overviews and Knowledge Structures consolidate understanding of groups of chapters and give a tighter structure to the book as a whole. Reworked Part Overviews and Knowledge Structures (one per page) provide more targeted detail on overarching themes.
Unique and critically acclaimed visual chapter summaries consolidate understanding by providing each concept in words, math, and figures and organizing these into a vertical hierarchy—from General Principles (top) to Applications (bottom).
New concepts are introduced through observations about the real world and theories grounded by making sense of observations. This inductive approach illustrates how science operates, and has been shown to improve student learning by reconciling new ideas with what they already know.
Special attention is given to address known misconceptions and areas that have been proven to cause difficulties, ranging from including a separate chapter on Newton’s Third Law, to individual “NOTE” paragraphs throughout that guide students away from known preconceptions and around common sticking points, and highlight many math- and vocabulary-related issues.
Stop to Think questions at the end of a section allow students to quickly check their understanding. Using powerful ranking-task and graphical techniques, they are designed to efficiently probe key misconceptions and encourage active reading. Answers are grouped by chapter at the end of the text.
Hand-drawn sketches are incorporated into select worked examples to provide a clear model of what students should draw during their own problem solving.

Pioneers the implementation of proven visual techniques that cognitive science has shown significantly increase engagement, assimilation, and retention of science concepts.
UPDATED! Visual program has been enhanced with over 500 pieces of revised art that increase the focus on key ideas, eliminating extraneous detail, information, and color. A hallmark of Knight since the beginning, figures are streamlined to focus on the physics at hand, for example, using the same color for the object of interest in mechanics, or by using the same color for force throughout the text.
Explicit instruction as annotations directly on figures helps students to interpret figures and graphs.
Extensive use is made of multiple representations—placing different representations side by side to help students develop the key skill of translating between words, math, and figures. Essential to good problem solving, this skill is overlooked in most physics textbooks.
Analogy is used throughout the text and figures to consolidate student understanding by comparing with a more familiar concept or situation.

Draws on nationwide student metadata to optimize assessment and practice material. Analysis of national student metadata (including time spent, most common wrong answers, and comment rate) has allowed every problem to be enhanced for educational effectiveness and accurately cal