In chapter 1 in the chapter summary on page 27, it defines "atom" as a fundamental building block of matter..
That is I suppose related to the ancient Greek etymology of the word, but there is more to physics than etymology, and our understanding of such things has improved over the course of 2400 years. There has been no point in the last 200 years where such a definition made sense. By the time anybody knew how big an atom was (1865) or used atoms to tell us something we didn't already know (1898, 1905) electrochemistry had been been around for a long time (1834) ... so atoms could not possibly be truly fundamental.
From the point of view of chemistry for the last 100 years or so, the fundamental building blocks are electrons, protons, and neutrons. That's probably good enough for Chapter 1 of the introductory physics book. Later, from the point of view of modern physics, there are N generations of quarks and leptons, plus various exchange particles, et cetera.
Suggestions;
This illustrates what happens if the chapter summary tries to masquerade as a chapter «glossary» or vice versa, as discussed in item #171. A glossary, by definition, is supposed to define or explain a difficult word or passage. Rather than a chapter «glossary» it would be better to have a chapter summary that aims for emphasis, not definition. By that I mean, no matter what it's called, it should emphasize ideas and de-emphasize terminology. (The existing «glossary» in the eyes of a typical student looks too much like terminology for terminology's sake.)
Also, this is related to the issues of "deduction" and "ideas before names" as discussed in item #177. Usually it is easier as well as better to offer an introductory explanation, rather than an allegedly deductive «definition». It would suffice for the chapter summary to link to the page where a proper explanation can be found. In this particular case, the idea of atoms is introduced on page 6, which is OK. The attempted «definition» as it stands on page 27 is not OK.
In chapter 1 in the chapter summary on page 27, it defines "atom" as
a fundamental building block of matter..That is I suppose related to the ancient Greek etymology of the word, but there is more to physics than etymology, and our understanding of such things has improved over the course of 2400 years. There has been no point in the last 200 years where such a definition made sense. By the time anybody knew how big an atom was (1865) or used atoms to tell us something we didn't already know (1898, 1905) electrochemistry had been been around for a long time (1834) ... so atoms could not possibly be truly fundamental.
From the point of view of chemistry for the last 100 years or so, the fundamental building blocks are electrons, protons, and neutrons. That's probably good enough for Chapter 1 of the introductory physics book. Later, from the point of view of modern physics, there are N generations of quarks and leptons, plus various exchange particles, et cetera.
Suggestions;
This illustrates what happens if the chapter summary tries to masquerade as a chapter «glossary» or vice versa, as discussed in item #171. A glossary, by definition, is supposed to define or explain a difficult word or passage. Rather than a chapter «glossary» it would be better to have a chapter summary that aims for emphasis, not definition. By that I mean, no matter what it's called, it should emphasize ideas and de-emphasize terminology. (The existing «glossary» in the eyes of a typical student looks too much like terminology for terminology's sake.)
Also, this is related to the issues of "deduction" and "ideas before names" as discussed in item #177. Usually it is easier as well as better to offer an introductory explanation, rather than an allegedly deductive «definition». It would suffice for the chapter summary to link to the page where a proper explanation can be found. In this particular case, the idea of atoms is introduced on page 6, which is OK. The attempted «definition» as it stands on page 27 is not OK.