This 1990 illustrated guide to physics is broken into 2 parts: mechanics and electricity AND magnetism. The first segment can be summoned up by Isaac Newton's 3 law of motion.
1. A body at rest persists in its state of rest, and a body in motion remains in constant motion along a straight line unless acted upon by an external force.
2. A body's acceleration is directly proportional to the force exerted on it and is in the same direction as the force.
3. To every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
(from owlcation.com)
Add in gravity, a bunch of equations that supposedly proves the theories behind the science and some history, you've got section one in a nutshell.
Section #2 isn't quite so clear. There's a lot about magnets. A lot about how we get electricity thanks to particle charges. Add in the best explanation I have ever seen about Einstein's theory of relativity that didn't use the old adage about putting your hand on a hot stove for a minute vs. spending 30 minutes with a beautiful woman. Then throw everything out with the paradoxes of quantum mechanics and I might be able to explain how to change a light bulb while putting a magnet on the door of your fridge.
UCLA physics and astronomy professor Larry Gonick teams with Discover Magazine's Art Huffman to teach the laws of the physical universe in The Cartoon Guide to Physics. The duo do their best to explain physics. It just whenever you add letters to numbers (or substitute them), my eyes glaze over.
For a very long time, I thought I just couldn't understand math. Then in my senior year of high school, I was finally diagnosed with math dyslexic. Once I understood that, my love of science abounded to a point that I daily use physics, chemistry, biology and even math in my career as a professional chef and culinary teacher.
As part of the reading challenge, I was to read a book about science. Since I enjoy physics, especially time travel and how simple machines work, I gave this book a chance.
There are 2 hosts for this book. The adventurous Ringo and his fellow astronaut, an unnamed hostess with the letter L on her belt. Ringo tends to get into trouble and gets easily confused. The hostess usually conducts her experiments with panache. Their visual aids make the confusion brought upon by the equations easier to understand many of the principles explored in this book. But I think an animated version would be a lot more helpful that using charts with arrows flowing this way and that.
Of the books I have read for this challenge, this has taken me the longest. Some nights I could breeze through 2-3 chapters. On others, I could only make it through a single chapter before my brain just turned to mush. I learned a lot. But when it comes to the theoretical stuff, I think I am just too much of a realist (or maybe a literalist) to understand it all.
Worth Consuming!
Rating: 7 out of 10 stars.
Completing this review completes Task #48 (About Science) of the 2022 Comic Book and Graphic Novel Reading Challenge.
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