Around a month ago I got asked if I would like to take a look at a physics book.  Now anyone who knows me knows that my physics experience is some what limited to say the least.  In fact something that most people probably don’t know is that Physics was my least loved subject when I was at school.  I had to work a lot harder at Physics than any of the other sciences as a child.  As such I was a little dubious about saying yes to having a Physics book sent to me.  You could class it as a physics phobia!  However this particular book had the title of The Manga Guide to Physics.  Which therefore mixed one of my phobia’s with something I love!  Manga!

All of a sudden physics and the process of learning it became a whole lot more fun!  In fact when the book arrived last week I opened it up and got started reading it… It didn’t take long for me to realise that this book is pretty revolutionary in it’s style and approach to making physics accessible to all.  I didn’t feel like an idiot for reading it, even as an adult!  It’s actually well written.  The story has been very carefully constructed to make it accessible to both genders anmakes, some of the basic and in fact some more complicated physics laws simple to understand and learn.  There are excercises and review sections which look a bit dull but they also add to the consolidation of the book.  Obviously this book on it’s own isn’t enough to get a student through their GCSE’s (or equivalent) but it does help to get students (and their parents) into some of the fundamentals of physics.  The artwork is beautifully constructed and the story is fun, mixing sports (from tennis through to ice skating) with science throughout.  – and no comments about me and ice skates please!   (Yes I know I should have read this book before going ice skating and hitting my head on the ice a few weeks ago!  And yes I should have remembered that if I’m falling forward I don’t need to lean back so much that I land on my head!  That wasn’t smart of clever! It was an accident!)

Something that immediately sprung out with this book was the fact that it makes physics relevant. I can imagine this book being used a lot in addition to standard school literature. Most content in schools is dull and boring particularly in the area of physics. (At least in my day) if I were a parent I would use this book with my child as an introduction to some of the basic laws of physics outside of the school environment. This book stops the content of physics from being dull by mixing physics With the likes of art, manga and sport.

Along with the manga guide to physics there is also manga guide to statistics, manga guide to databases, manga guide to electricity, manga Guide to calculus and a manga guide to molecular biology. If you wonder about the price of these books they are only $19.95 which in the UK would be roughly around £15.99 (and can be found on Amazon.  I think I’m going to keeping my eye on the manga site www.edumanga.me to see whether there’s any other new book coming out.  This particular book was sent to me by no starch press www.nostarch.com .

I have to say this was one of the most fun and exciting textbooks as I’ve ever had to read and that’s saying a lot!

About Sarah Lamb

Sarah is the founder of the Girl Geek Dinners & GirlyGeekdom. She is a lover of gadgets, geeky things and sport! Find out more about her on her website.

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This entry was posted on Monday, August 3rd, 2009 at 5:30 pm and is filed under Comics, Education, Science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.