Reviews for The Cartoon Guide To Physics (Turtleback School & Library Binding Edition)

The average rating for The Cartoon Guide To Physics (Turtleback School & Library Binding Edition) based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2010-02-07 00:00:00 Omed Ahim Well my first review was deleted by Goodreads, which is why you should always have a backup...but I digress. So I have been on this knowledge quest lately. Mostly an attempt to make up for not really giving a damn in high school. Of course,I got fantastic grades in high school, but I usually just did it by going through the motions and writing crap my teachers wanted to hear. Now that I am no longer under that burden, I've been taking the time to actually make up for lost time and lost educational opportunities as millions like me have been forced through the lowest common denominator known as the American educational system probably can relate. In this educational quest, I've taken up learning about physics and astronomy and other sciency things. While at the library a few weeks ago, I picked up The Cartoon Guide to Physics. I like comics and thought what an interesting way to learn about physics. In this highly cheesy, yet entertaining book, I actually did learn some useful information. It is definitely not for the college level physics major, but for the slightly above average person or student with an interest in learning about physics, it is a fun book to turn to get the overall basics. The book contains chapters on everything from motion to electric currents to quantum electrodynamics. It's not the cartoon guide to rocket science, so you probably won't be working for NASA afterward, but you will at least have a basic idea of why your light bulbs turn on, why we all don't float off into space, and how magnets work. Enjoy!

Review # 2 was written on 2020-01-21 00:00:00 Robert Skenes Not exactly sure why I bought this, as I know (or knew) most of the material. I still found it useful and (a little bit) funny. Whether it will help people with a math or science phobia, I can't say. But it is well organized and presented. Some equations, but mostly visual explanations. The sections on Newton's laws had nothing new for me. Though the way that a spinning wheel will precess due to gravity still feels weird to me no matter how many times I see it or work through the equations. He mentioned that the English measuring system uses a unit called a "slug" to represent mass. That isn't the way I learned it. (* footnote) The sections on electromagnetism were the most useful for me. Again, I've been exposed to all of this before, but haven't thought about most of it in years. This sort of high-level overview is great for anyone thinking of diving in a greater depth later. The authors chose to present Einstein's Special Relativity without any reference to the speed of light. (They don't discuss light at all until two chapters later where they show how it emerges from Maxwell's laws.) Instead they contrast the effects of a magnet moving through a stationary loop of wire. The electric and magnetic fields look very different depending on whether you are stationary with respect to the magnet, or with respect to the wire. This is a very unusual way to describe relativity, but it is a valid way and builds on the earlier chapters in a logical way. * Footnote: (In engineering classes we used English units, but spoke of "pound mass" and "pound weight" when we needed to distinguish mass from weight. The "slug" is a different way of dealing with that, but not an approach I've ever used. Looking into that led me to a Wikipedia rabbit hole about the craziness of unit systems. A gallon is different sizes for liquids or solids. A pint bottle of beer is smaller in Canada than in USA, though in cans they match. An ounce is different in Avoirdupois system from the Troy system used for gold and silver. Etc.)