Feynman Lectures (again)- no competition if you are looking for that much depth.
Physics for the Inquiring Mind - as good as Feynman but MUCH simpler- written for Liberal Arts students at Princeton many moons ago. Out of print but worth the hunt.
I teach physics at a state university...all textbooks I have seen written in the last 15 years are SHIT. No editorial control, lots of pretty pictures and not much else. I have made thousands of dollars from publishers correcting these books for errors after calling them up and berating them for low quality. Halliday and Resnick (old editions, like 1970's) is widely available in used bookstores and is very good, if very dry. Compared to today's texts one of its most notable features is that it contains NO errors.
Slashdot Mirror
Feynman Lectures (again)- no competition if you are looking for that much depth. Physics for the Inquiring Mind - as good as Feynman but MUCH simpler- written for Liberal Arts students at Princeton many moons ago. Out of print but worth the hunt. I teach physics at a state university...all textbooks I have seen written in the last 15 years are SHIT. No editorial control, lots of pretty pictures and not much else. I have made thousands of dollars from publishers correcting these books for errors after calling them up and berating them for low quality. Halliday and Resnick (old editions, like 1970's) is widely available in used bookstores and is very good, if very dry. Compared to today's texts one of its most notable features is that it contains NO errors.