The Cartoon Guide to Physics

If you think a negative charge is something that shows up on your credit card bill, imagine that Ohm's Law dictates how long to meditate, or believe that Newtonian mechanics will fix your car, then you need The Cartoon Guide to Physics to set you straight!

You don't have to be a scientist to grasp complex ideas, because The Cartoon Guide to Physics explains them all: velocity, acceleration, explosions, electricity and magnetism, circuits—even a taste of relativity theory—in simple, clear, and, yes, funny illustrations.

In The Cartoon Guide to Physics, you’ll find illustrated and entertaining deep-dives into:

• AC and DC: As in “alternating current” and “direct current”—not the Australian rock and roll band. (But we promise that electrical currents can be cool too!)
• Electric and magnetic fields: Not just a proposal to make football more exciting! Together they account for almost all of the forces you encounter in daily life that aren't gravity—friction, tension, chemical bonding, and the rigidity of solid objects.
• Weightlessness: Why are astronauts weightless in their spacecrafts? And can we achieve weightlessness on Earth? (Spoiler: Yes, we can—in a falling elevator! Don’t worry though, you won’t be weightless for too long…)
• Newtons: The unit of force, not the delicious fig cookies. (Although, you COULD change your newtons by eating a lot of Newtons…)
• And so much more!

Gonick’s wry wit and humorous examples—coupled with his legendary cartooning skills and bolstered by the brain of physics professor Art Huffman—distill these dense and sometimes difficult topics into material that’s relatable, easy to digest, and fun to read. Students and professors, as well as the casually curious, will emerge with a deeper understanding of the core principles of physics, and Gonick will—somehow, impossibly—make them laugh along the way.

Larry Gonick has been creating comics that explain math, history, science, and other big subjects for more than forty years. His Cartoon Guide series has enjoyed immense success, earning him a Harvey Award (the “Oscar of Comics”). He has been a calculus instructor at Harvard (where he earned his BA and MA in mathematics), a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT, and a Montgomery Fellow at Dartmouth. He was staff cartoonist for Muse magazine. His books have sold millions of copies worldwide and have been translated into more than twenty-five languages.