Flying Circus of Physics

In 1977, Wiley published the first edition of Jearl Walker’s The Flying Circus of Physics, which has sold over 100,000 copies and become a cult classic in the physics community. The Flying Circus is a compendium of interesting real world phenomena that can be explained using basic laws of physics. This new edition represents a thorough updating and modernization of the book. The new edition gives us the opportunity to highlight Jearl’s creativity, his communication skills, and his ability to make physics interesting.

Hurry! Hurry! Come one, come all. Meet a man who can pull two railroad passenger cars with his teeth and a real-life human cannon ball. Come face to face with a dead rattlesnake that still bites. And unlock the secrets to the magician’s bodiless head.

Welcome to Jearl Walker’s Flying Circus of Physics, 2nd Edition, where death-defying stunts, high-flying acrobatics, strange curiosities, and mind-bending illusions are all part of everyday life. You don’t need a ticket; you only need to look to the world around you to uncover these fascinating feats of physics.

Completely updated and expanded, this Second Edition of Jearl Walker’s best-selling book features more than 700 thoroughly intriguing questions about relevant, fun, and completely real physical phenomena. Detailed explanations and references to outside sources guide your way through the problems.

You’ll discover answers to such questions as:

• Can you start a fire with ice?
• Why does the sky turn green just before a tornado?
• Why do wintergreen LifeSavers glow in the dark when you bite them?
• If you are falling in an elevator, should you try to jump up at the last second or lay flat against the floor?
• How do electric eels produce their electric field?
• Why is wet sand darker than dry sand?
• What causes an oasis mirage?
• Why do stars twinkle?
• Could you drive a car on a ceiling?

His book The Flying Circus of Physics was published 30 years ago, has been translated into at least 10 languages, and is still being sold world wide. For 16 years he toured his Flying Circus talk throughout the U.S. and Canada, introducing such physics stunts as the bed-of-nails demonstration and the walking-on-hot-coals demonstration to countless physics teachers, who then proceeded to hurt themselves when they repeated the stunts in their own classrooms. These talks led to his PBS television show Kinetic Karnival which ran nationally for years and which earned an Emmy.

Chapter 1. Slipping Between Falling Drops. (Motion).

Chapter 2. Racing on the Ceiling, Swimming Through Syrup. (Fluids).

Chapter.3. Hiding Under the Covers, Listening or the Monsters. (Sound).

Chapter 4. Striking at the Heat in the Night. (Thermal Processes).

Chapter 5. Ducking First a Roar and Then a Flash. (Electricity and Magnetism).

Chapter 6. Splashing Colors Everywhere, Like a Rainbow. (Optics).

Chapter 7. Armadillos Dancing Against a Swollen Moon. (Vision).

Index.