I study physics in Chile, and this book has been pretty useful for a first course in QM, but I have to note that the first 170 pages are titled "Problems and Solutions on Electromagnetism"! I hope someone gets word to the editor....

Other than that, I'm pretty sure this book will find a place on your private shelf.

All of these books titled "Problems and Solutions on (subject): Major American Universities Ph.D. Qualifying Questions and Solutions" are invaluable tools for a physics graduate student, in my experience. For quantum mechanics in particular, solved problems often illustrate difficult concepts better than any explanatory paragraph in a text.

Criticism: Sparse index and contents. You'll find yourself adding notes to pages in the book quite often.

If you are a student in physics, I suggest that you get your hands on these books.

Sometimes it is very difficult to teach a course in quantum mechanics because there are few problems that have solutions that do not require months of research and numerical methods to solve. I have found that in my own courses on quantum mechanics, I take a lot of notes and I do a lot of homework assignments, but I don't have a whole lot of concrete, well-explained problems and solutions to show for all of the work. Since I found this book and those that accompany it, however, I have a very good source for problems and their solutions in QM. These problems are an excellent study aid for the solutions provide insight into the basics of the field. Strongly recommended.

This text has been around for many years and I have spoken to some Chinese language instructors who feel that it is dated. In any event, even they admit that the book is still useful in its explanation of grammar and example sentences. Personally, I like the use of the Yale system. It is phonetically closer to English than pinyin. However, that system (Yale) is not being used in new texts. In any case, the vocabulary items are repeated enough throughout the book to make them easy to commit to memory. If one is going to use the book for self study, the tapes are a crucial addition. Although the study guide is a good one, it lacks answer keys to the exercises. Consequently, this makes some of the final chapters a bit more challenging to work through.

This book was the primary text to my course in college. Within weeks, students developed small, but functional speaking vocabularies. Though the Yale system of romanization is used for this book, its phonetic system properly trains the vocals for Beijing Mandarin. It is personally felt that after first learning Yale romanization, conversion to Pinyin and Wade-Jiles is a simple adjustment which creates a more universal Mandarin Chinese Student.

This is the book I used when I first learned Chinese. It is a rather boring book to look at, but it is so straightforward that, with tapes or a native speaker to help you, you can make real progress rather quickly. The Yale romanization poses no problem as it is close enough to pinyin to make later adjustments quite easy. In my mind it's the best there is - and I've tried them all just about.

I have not reviewed the Solid State portion of the book, and my review is limited to the relativity portion. I have been very pleased with the other books in the excellent series, but in the area of special relativity, I found this one somewhat disappointing. There were only seven problems in this area, and three were essentially the same thing. One was the basic derivation of the Lorentz transformation, which can be found in any relativity textbook. As I mentioned, I can not speak for the Solid State part of the book, but if you expect a variety of useful problems on special relativity, you will be disappointed. The general relativity part is OK, but I do not know of many schools which include general relativity on their qualifying exams.

This book has LOTS of sample problems. Though the solutions are not indepth, they do point you in the right direction. A good book to have if you need to study for a PhD exam, though your school should have it's own library.

All of these books titled "Problems and Solutions on (subject): Major American Universities Ph.D. Qualifying Questions and Solutions" are invaluable tools for a physics graduate student, in my experience.

It is difficult to find solved problems concering the topics in this text, so it is smaller than some of the others. However, it is still invaluable.

Criticism: Sparse index. You might find yourself adding a lot of notes of your own to the index as well as the contents.

If you are a student in physics, I suggest that you get your hands on these books.

I work with a couple of flavours of unix and find that some basic things slip through the cracks sometimes. I found that this book is great to refresh my mind on some of the differances between them and also simple things like the names of various utilities. Overall a good book if you want dabble in a Unix that you are not familiar with.

I use various flavours of UNIX (including Linux) and have found this book useful and well organised. It took me a while to find a concise reference which manages to direct one in the right direction, even if the exact solution isn't available. Ideal for people tampering with various UNIX systems simultaneously.

I haven't had a chance to go through the entire book yet, but from what I've seen, most of it is reasonably concise and thorough. However, they seem to like certain pieces of software more than others and thus leave holes in their text: 3 good examples are their discussion of Vi being more or less the editor of choice on UNIX systems--and then give just a glancing explanation of Emacs, not even mentioning its LISP capabilities (among others--we all know Emacs is less of an editor now and more of an environment!); their discussion of windowing systems didn't concentrate on X, but CDE, which runs under X; only 3 other managers got cursory mention, and FVWM wasn't even among them. But worst of all was that there isn't even a single mention of Perl in this book--NOT ONE MENTION!! Perl is more and more becoming indispensable now, not to mention the language of choice for CGI scripts. Nevertheless, this seems to be a pretty decent book overall, so I give it 4 stars, though part of me only wants to give 3.

Roy Appleman started working on this book when he was a combat historian in the US Army during the Korean War and continued into the 80s. By examining military records and interviewing many of the participants at all levels, he brings a great deal of detail to bear on a narrow focus: the experiences of the United States Eighth Army (with attached Turkish, British, and South Korean units) in the Korean War from November 24th, 1950 to December 26th,1950.

That detail can be mindnumbing at times, especially for a life-long civilian like me. A large portion of this book is taken up with such details as when x platoon detached from Company Y to occupy Hill Z. Appleman tries to be as clear as possible and substitutes organizing his history around units for a straight chronological telling of events. On occasion, he stops to remind us what is happening elsewhere simultaneous to the events he is covering or backtracks to place things in context. There are plenty of maps, many of them detailed, but the book could have used even more.

The book doesn't start to get really interesting until about half way through when Appleman takes up the harrowing retreat of the 2nd Infantry Division from Kunu-ri. This account, even more than the rest of the book, is drawn from post-combat interviews since most of the official records were lost. It tells of an approximately six mile retreat, done by some units at night in subzero temperatures, down a narrow road while under enemy fire from both sides. It is an example of confused command, bad coordination between units, and courage and cowardice.

After the retreat from Kunu-ri, we get the details of Operation Bug-Out, its unofficial title in some quarters, when the UN forces fled approximately 300 miles south of their most northernly positions in Korea.

All this detail, while boring at times, is sometimes quite informative to those unacquainted with the details of military logistics. I gleaned, in passing, some understanding of how advances and retreats are planned, the intricacies of the quartermaster's work, and the coordination of artillery support with the infantry.

As you would expect from the author of the US Army's offical history of the first five months of the Korean War, this book is also partially intended as a case study for professional military men. Appleman criticizes the actions of everyone from the Joint Chiefs of Staff and MacArthur to the behavior of privates. He restates the frequent criticism that MacArthur's notion of reunifying Korea was foolish. Korea's border with China was unpatrollable by the forces MacArthur had to say nothing of his misreading of Chinese intention and capabilities. The Joint Chiefs of Staff should have denied MacArthur permission to advance to the Chinese border. Appleman also notes a general lack of ground reconnaisance to scout out the disposition of Chinese forces before and after their second offensive. It was failure to maintain contact with the enemy which was partially responsible for the decision not to form a defensive line at the waist of Korea in December 1950 even though the Chinese did not, indeed could not, follow the retreating forces.

On the mid-levels of command, Appleman also notes problems. In the withdrawal from Kunu-ri, Colonel Freeman's controversial decision not to perform a rearguard action for the retreating column is covered. Appleman sees it as a breakdown in coordination and the chain of command. Appleman also notes how General Walker had units in reserve but did not use them in a northward attack to clear the Chinese roadblock between Sunchon and Kunu-ri. He mentions, but has no explanation for, the British Middlesex Battalion's failure to support the retreat as ordered.

On the lowest levels, Appleman notes a general lack of discipline, with some notable exceptions, about maintaining supplies and equipment and also armor units failing to support infantry in clearing Chinese from the sides of the Kunu-ri-Sunchon road.

Appleman also stresses that his account corrects two misconceptions in the history of the Korean War. Chinese General Lin Piao, a legendary figure from the Long March, did not lead troops in the second Chinese offensive of the war, and the Chinese did not exploit a gap between the Eighth Army and the X Corps. Rather, they punched a whole in the front and exploited it.

Military professionals and veterans of the events covered should find this book valueable. Casual readers of military history will find parts slow going, but the book should ultimately reward their attention.

The Eighth Army's retreat from Northwest Korea after the invasion of the Chinese Army in 1950 is a difficult event to understand because of the simultaneous occurrence of many interconnected battles. Appleman's treatment of these events brings clarity to the overall picture, and brings into sharp relief the command failures and inconsistencies which exacerbated the defeat of U.S. forces. Unanswered in Appleman's detailed treatment, however, is the question of why the Eighth Army failed to carry out its declared intention to establish a defensive line north of Pyongyang. Instead, the Army seemed to lose all coherence and fall back in a panicked rush until it was well below the 38th parallel, long after it had lost contact with the advancing Chinese. Appleman's harsh evaluation of Col. Paul Freeman's decision to withdraw his regiment by the coast road is also somewhat controversial, although I must say that after reading Appleman's account of the sequence of events it is hard to disagree with his conclusion.

Okay, I haven't yet actually read this book, just browsed it at Cody's in Berkeley. I am a beginner, studying Tai Chi with Simmone at San Francisco State University and she is a dynamic teacher-fun yet strict, philosophical yet irreverent. This book tells about her husband's practice and a little about his life. It also has lots of pictures of Simmone! Hee hee!

(I give it three stars if you're a student of Simmone's)

This book is a wonderful guide to Tai-Chi Chuan. I have read this book, along with her husband's book, for both of her Tai-Chi courses at SFSU. This is a great book to carry with you, even if you are not enrolled in any of her courses or her outside classes at her studio. You really do develop long life and good health through this beautiful exercise. Simmone is a great teacher through words and action.

This book is great! Any teacher's dream! I am a teacher, and our class is going on a trip to the mountains in a month. This book is definitely going to keep us busy! I also plan to use it to help my cousins come up with ideas for their upcoming science fair. The book is filled not only with experiments, but also fun games and art activities! Each section has its own informative introduction. And the "Before You Start" is filled with great information and tips. I definitely recommend this book, not only to teachers, but to parents as well!

"Brushed Voices" is the beautifully-printed catalog of an exhibition of calligraphy at Columbia University by some two dozen living Chinese artists. The author, a calligrapher and scholar of art himself, selected works of art that demonstrate important trends in calligraphy, such as "non-character calligraphy," where calligraphers make up non-existent characters, which they write as elegantly and seriously as real characters, as a kind of comment on the difficult and sometimes nonsensical nature of traditional Chinese learning, and "pictorial calligraphy," where artists make calligraphy by "painting" characters in splashy, washy strokes that are composed like the elements of a picture. The catalog contains insightful discussions of the artists' ideas and use of the brush, as well as biographical information about each artist. This is the only book in English to open a window onto the flourishing world of calligraphy in China today.

This is a good book that present CCK as an interesting part of Taiwan history. However, CCK did put many people away including General Sun Li-jen in his own KMT camp. I'm just glad that Taiwan is a democratic country now under the disguise of Status Quo, which means we can views both his bad deeds in early life as well as his good deeds at end of his life. Anyhow, history provide important lessons for us to learn for those that didn't fight for their own rights and voices to be heard. This is why Taiwanese people should be even more determine to pursue our own interests in political, economical, and military matters for our future!

Jay Taylor's matter of fact approach, he tries not to cast judgement on all of the people portrayed here, provides a pretty interesting of CCK's fascinating life. What emerges is basically at first a rather impressionable young man who was caught up in one of the 20th Century's great power plays. The period of his Soviet activities is especially fascinating, especially his commitment to Bolshevism and apparent intention to remain in the USSR and seek candidacy in the CPSU. As an aside, the revelation that Lee Tung Hui was once a candidate member of the CCP is also interesting viewing his present activities. In the end CCK was obedient to his father's wishes and carried out his filial duties, never disrespecting his father or his legacy. The book is very fair to CCK, balancing his personal feelings with what his father's legacy saddle him with. Taylor's assessment that the best chance for rapproachment between the CCP and KMT was when CCK and Deng were at their twilight and that it was a shame that CCK left the scene much too early to finish his job is pretty much on the mark. I wonder how he would look upon the current developments on Taiwan and in China, but I think history will regard him very favorably as future generations realize what he accomplished.

President Chiang Ching-Kuo was the greatest leader of China who started Taiwan miracle. If there was no President Chiang Ching-Kuo, we people in Taiwan could never have a life like today. I certainlly hope people can read the history fairly!!

While I still finished the book, the stereotypical characterisations and lack of coherant editing makes me question bothering to continue reading the series.

Take the chance and embark on a long journey with David Wingrove. You will not be let down. Problem is, you will see nothing of your friends or family for the next three months.

But, that is what you are looking for in a book, isn't it?

Take the chance and embark on a long journey with David Wingrove. You will not be let down. Problem is, you will see nothing of your friends or family for the next three months.

But that is what you want from a book, isn't it...