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 of a magician?s bodiless head. Welcome
to this updated edition of The Flying Circus of Physics,
where death-defying stunts, high-flying acrobatics, strange
curiosities, and mind-bending illusions bring to life the
fascinating feats of physics in the world around us.

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. 

Jearl
Walker, Ph.D., professor of physics at Cleveland State
University and the man who frequently walked on hot coals and lay
on beds of nails all in the name of science, is the first recipient
of the Outstanding Teaching Award from Cleveland State's College of
Science. The College's Faculty Affairs Committee selected Dr.
Walker as the first honoree based on his impressive contributions
to science teaching over the last 30 years. In fact, the award in
future years will be named the Jearl Walker Outstanding Teaching
Award in recognition of his many achievements.

Jearl Walker received his B.S. in physics from MIT in 1967 and
his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Maryland in 1973. His
popular book, The Flying Circus of Physics, has been
translated into at least 10 languages and is still being sold
worldwide. For 16 years he toured his fun-filled Flying Circus
lecture throughout the U.S. and Canada, introducing countless
teachers to such physics phenomena as molecular adhesion by hanging
spoons from his face and Leidenfrost's phenomenon by dipping his
wet hand in molten lead without getting hurt.

These lectures led to his national PBS television show, Kinetic
Karnival, which ran for several years and won him a local Emmy
Award. During his 13 years as a columnist with Scientific American
magazine, Dr. Walker wrote 152 articles for "The Amateur Scientist"
section, which were translated into at least 9 languages worldwide.
His topics ranged from the physics of judo to the physics of
bearnaise sauce and lemon meringue pie. In 1990, he took over the
textbook Fundamentals of Physics from David Halliday and
Robert Resnick and has now published the seventh edition of the
book. He has appeared countless times on television and radio and
in newspapers and magazines.