Understanding the Properties of Matter: 2nd Edition is an entertaining and innovative textbook that will fulfil the needs of undergraduate physicists and provides the resources needed by teachers of phyics.
"The first step to understanding is familiarity." In this book you will be introduced to the properties of matter, will make their acquaintance, and hopefully become lifelong friends. This book takes a unique phenomenological approach. After an overview of basic ideas and a reminder of the importance of measurement, the book considers in turn gases, solids, liquids and phase changes. For each topic, the main focus is on "What happens?". After a preliminary examination of data on the properties of matter, the text raises, and then addresses a series of questions concerning the data. It is only in answering these questions that the theoretical approach to the properties of matter is adopted. This approach motivates students and teachers alike, allowing everyone to rediscover a fascination for the subjects that have excited some of the greatest physicists of our age.
There are extensive examples and end of chapter exercises and this new edition has a new chapter composed entirely of extended exercises.
At www.physicsofmatter.com you will find additional web-based materials and freely downloadable resources including:
* Supplementary chapters on band theory os solids and the magnetic properties of solids
* Copies of all the data tables used in the book (in .pdf and spreadsheet format)
* Enlarged copies of all the figures
* A simple molecular dynamics simulation (for Windows & Mac)
* Animations illustrating important features of key equations
* Answers to all end of chapter exercises

Related link: http://www.physicsofmatter.com