The Flying Circus of Physics

I am a retired science person who volunteers as an eighth grade science teacher. My primary notion is to convince the students that an understanding of the basic ideas of physics will enable you to comprehend more complex principals. To accomplish this, I am always searching for real life examples which demonstrate physics ideas. "The Flying Circus of Physics" provides a rich mix of these examples that makes the student see physics as part of their day-to-day life and not an abstraction.

This is my favorite book. This is a fantastic collection of hundreds of physics puzzlers, many taken from everyday life. It is full of thought-provoking questions about: superballs, silly putty, tops, and yo-yos; boiling water, dripping faucets, and blowing bubbles; rain, rainbows, snow, lightning, and tornados; bicycles, cars, boats, airplanes, and spaceships; magnets, electricity, radio, and television. It has answers in the back, but it is more fun if you try to figure it out for yourself, and resist looking up the answer. Some of these simple questions are so deep that scientists don't know the answers yet. Literally wonder-full.

A favorite uncle gave me this book when I was eleven or twelve, and I went on to love it literally to pieces. **But I still have all the pieces**, and I give copies of this book to kids who seem succeptible to it like I was. Potential buyers should know that the book is arranged in an unusual format. One section, the questions, is divided topically into the major subcategories of physics; questions are numbered by category and then sequentially, such as 5.8, 5.9, 5.10... The answers to the questions are found in a separate section, using the numbers. Because of this, you tend to read the book with a finger stuck in the answers so you can find your place when you go to check your work. There is also a separate bibliography section, but I never paid much attention to that as a kid :^)

This is a book of real-world physics questions and explainations. Billiards, air-conditioning, carnival games, and more are covered.Our high school advanced physics course used this book for a "special" kind of weekly lab where groups of students were assigned a few questions and the group was to write up short answers/explainations to the questions posed by Jearl, applying the concepts we learned in class and stretching our thought process.Most questions have solid physics explainations, some don't. As such, scores were given based on insight, communication, and application.The point of this book is to provoke thought and grab students' interest, and Jearl is a master.

You can learn a lot of physics from this book. It can help you develop the kind of intuition that you will not get from conventional physics books. In addition, you can learn some off-beat physics that is not normally taught in classes.