The Flying Circus of Physics
book by Jearl Walker
The Flying Circus of Physics by Jearl Walker (1975, published by John Wiley and Sons; "with Answers" in 1977; 2nd edition in 2007), is a book that poses and answers 740 questions that are concerned with everyday physics. There is a strong emphasis upon phenomena that might be encountered in one's daily life. The questions are interspersed with 38 "short stories" about related material.
The book covers topics relating to motion, fluids, sound, thermal processes, electricity, magnetism, optics, and vision.
There is a website for the book which stores over 11,000 references, 2,000 links, new material, a detailed index, and other supplementary material. There is also a collection of YouTube videos by the author on the material. See External links at the bottom of this page.
Jearl Walker is a professor of physics at Cleveland State University. He is also known for his work on the highly popular textbook of introductory physics, Fundamentals of Physics, which is currently in its 12th edition. From 1978 until 1990, Walker wrote The Amateur Scientist column in Scientific American magazine.
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The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as book by Jearl Walker. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1198604. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1975, 1977, 2007 and 1978.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Flying Circus of Physics” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.