The Cartoon Guide to Physics (Cartoon Guide Series)

My son has a strong interest in science and two years ago at Christmas I was looking for a book on physics that would appeal to him. The textbooks that I'd looked at were too dry and formal, the ones for kids too simple. This one was just right. I purchased this after reading that it was written as a high school and college study book in one of the reviews here. He'd already had an introduction to physics from reading Basher's little book on it (Physics, Why Matter Matters), but he wanted something more challenging that gave him more information. He was really happy when he got this book and he carried this book around for months, reading it. I liked that concepts I'd never been able to grasp before were explained in a way that I could understand (with a cartoon drawing to help make it more clear). This dog-eared book has finally been put on the bookshelf, but I expect he'll pull it out to read it one more time again before too long. Since he was 8 years old when he got this we didn't focus on the mathematical equations related to the physics concepts much, although we did talk through many of them when reading together.Also, just because it has cartoons doesn't mean it was written for children. This isn't a little kid's book and some of the reviewers seemed disappointed by that fact - but that is exactly why I bought it.

Larry Gonick is a genius at teaching. his fun drawing style and light sense of humor help bring entry level content on topics many have hated in a way they can get into w/o realizing they are learning! i have a phd in molecular biology and also do museum exhibit design and can see both sides of the content and its delivery and the man just knows how to reach folks intuitively then feed them lots of great content to make a hated topic for them fun again. My wife never had physics and this was perfect for her to get the basics. ive given the statistics books to many folks who hated stats and never got it and they all were amazed at how easy it actually was! his history books have a bit of very light irreverent humor, but this puts things in a way to make you think about history, not just learn names and dates, and by thinking about it you LEARN something from history useful for the future.he also is a great story teller so lessons have some sort of character and story usually associated with them or bit of humor, something that helps the mind recall the facts and concepts much more easily than just them given blandly on their own.Any of his books are a wonderful gift to anyone who wants to learn a bit about a subject they were scared of or hated and enjoy it. makes the for dummies books look dumb! these are the next best thing to having a great teacher with you!

"The Cartoon Guide to Physics", first published in 1990, is one of a series of Cartoon Guides which Larry Gonick has co-authored with scientists in the field of choice; in this case it is with Art Huffman who is in the physics department at UCLA. Outside of Larry Gonick's excellent "Cartoon History of the Universe" series, this is the best of his books that I have read.There are two sections in the book: `Mechanics', and `Electricity and Magnetism'. The first section deals with motion, forces, Newton's Laws, Energy, and associated topics. The second section deals with electricity and electrical fields, and magnets and magnetic fields. It also touches on relativity and quantum electrodynamics. They do not cover topics such as String Theory or Chaos Theory, which have become increasingly more publicized since this book was published.This book works well as an introduction to the topic, or as a refresher. There is not enough substance for this to serve as a text book, nor do they provide a bibliography to assist the reader in finding more in depth books on any of the topics. However, Gonick does a wonderful job of blending the history of the field with the topics that are covered, and he does so in a way which does not overwhelm the reader.

I bought this to use with my 10th graders math he is using life of Fred Elementary Physics and really enjoys it but when I ask him about what he is learning I have no idea if he is right or not so really I bought this to explain to me a non-science thinking person what he is studying. I have to say it is very interesting and I read two chapters in one setting and I fell that I understand better what my son has been trying to explain to me. I think I will have him read it also so that he can use references from it to tell me what he is learning. I think this would be great for homeschoolers from 7th grade and up. Or to help if you are taking a high school physics class.

Great for learning the basics in cartoon format.

I bought this for my 13-year-old daughter who enjoyed her physics lesson in her GT 8th-grade class. She sat down and read most of the book. She didn't do any of the example work, but she enjoyed the book and I think it was a perfect introduction as she moves into high school. I think anyone who needs to learn the basics of physics would benefit. It's taught from a basic perspective so it's easy to understand even for beginners. My daughter is very bright and adapted quickly. Because it arrived the last week of school, she wasn't motivated to do more than look at it, but she actually took the time to go through the entire book over the next 2 weeks. The illustrations are entertaining and very effective. The explanations are clear and I definitely recommend it.

I love this book. It covers basic physics and even touches on quantum electrodynamics in a very fun and engaging way. I have given this book to many friends as gifts and now that our kids are entering college, have given it as graduation gifts to students entering into engineering and science degrees. It has been very well received -- much better than a pen or alarm clock in my opinion.