I have to say, my automatic thought when I read your comment was “riffling through stacks in a used book store? Bo-ring! And time consuming!” Then I saw the addition about online shopping. I have bought a few physics books second-hand online before, although if I’m not mistaken it still cost $50 for a first year textbook, not something I’m willing to pay unless I’m very interested in the subject.
From my experience that depends heavily on the textbook’s content. You can go quite a few editions down in the humanities without any change.
Most first year books can use last year’s edition or even the year before, not for a class of course, but for your own use. Classical mechanics hasn’t changed much since Newton.
Now when you start getting into the “Oxford/MIT/Harvard/Fancy U/ handbook handbook range I’ve seen higher than $150, being used only drove the price up.
Classical mechanics has changed significantly since Newton, with two reformulations not even counting relativity.
Newtonian classical mechanics is late 1600s, with “laws of motion” from 1687. Lagrangian mechanics was formulated in 1788. Hamiltonian mechanics in 1833. And of course, each of these gets relativistic modifications and formulations...
It’s true that you don’t need “the latest” book, but you probably do want one that’s from the last 50 years.
I have to say, my automatic thought when I read your comment was “riffling through stacks in a used book store? Bo-ring! And time consuming!” Then I saw the addition about online shopping. I have bought a few physics books second-hand online before, although if I’m not mistaken it still cost $50 for a first year textbook, not something I’m willing to pay unless I’m very interested in the subject.
From my experience that depends heavily on the textbook’s content. You can go quite a few editions down in the humanities without any change.
Most first year books can use last year’s edition or even the year before, not for a class of course, but for your own use. Classical mechanics hasn’t changed much since Newton.
Now when you start getting into the “Oxford/MIT/Harvard/Fancy U/ handbook handbook range I’ve seen higher than $150, being used only drove the price up.
Classical mechanics has changed significantly since Newton, with two reformulations not even counting relativity.
Newtonian classical mechanics is late 1600s, with “laws of motion” from 1687. Lagrangian mechanics was formulated in 1788. Hamiltonian mechanics in 1833. And of course, each of these gets relativistic modifications and formulations...
It’s true that you don’t need “the latest” book, but you probably do want one that’s from the last 50 years.