This terrific book demonstrates a number of important points. First, a subject that everyone "knows" is difficult and boring can, in the hands of a master teacher, be both exciting and fun. Second, it's a myth that only people particularly adept at mathematics can understand and enjoy physics. Third, superhero comic books have socially redeeming qualities. By combining his love for physics with his love of comic books, University of Minnesota physicist Kakalios has written a book for the general reader covering all of the basic points in a first-level college physics course and is difficult to put down. Among many other things, Kakalios uses the basic laws of physics to "prove" that gravity must have been 15 times greater on Krypton than on Earth; that Spiderman's girlfriend, Gwen Stacy, died because his webbing stopped her too abruptly after she plunged from the George Washington Bridge; and that when the Flash runs, he's surrounded by a pocket of air that enables him to breathe. Kakalios draws on the Atom, Iron Man, X-Men, the Ant-Man and the Hulk, among many others, to cover topics as diverse as electromagnetism, quantum mechanics, string theory and thermodynamics. That all of this is accomplished with enough humor to make you laugh aloud is an added bonus. B&w illus. <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">Agent, Jay Mandel.<EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">(Oct.)

How do you teach someone physics? Relate it to the life of a superhero. Kakalios (Physics/Univ. of Minnesota) uses comic books in the classroom to illustrate the principles of physics. He notes early on in this approachable primer that the most common question from physics students is, "When am I ever going to use this stuff in real life?" He adds that when he incorporates superhero comics into lessons, students " never wonder when they will use this information in real life.' " Kakalios draws examples from the so-called "Silver Age" of comics, which ran from approximately 1956 to 1973. He sticks for the most part to the better known heroes like The Flash, the X-Men, Spider-Man and, of course, Superman. The scientific scenarios are often complex, though the author does his best to break them down for the layman, discussing, for example, how much energy The Flash needs to run, and calculating how many cheeseburgers would be required to keep him moving. One of the book's better sections deals with what actually happened in one of comics' most-discussed tragedies: the death of Spider-Man's love, Gwen Stacy, dropped from a great height by the Green Goblin and saved from impact by Spidey, who finds that "the fall" had already killed her. Kakalios shows that it wasn't the fall that did it but velocity (stopping someone abruptly with a web would probably break his neck). With passion, genial affability and a penchant for bad (truly bad) jokes, Kakalios ably relates the most baffling of theorems. If only he had done more with Batman. A book that mixes pop culture and science without drawing lines between the two.