Why is it that you can warm your hands by blowing gently against them and cool them by blowing hard? The answer requires a clear understanding of physics and a rudimentary knowledge of the workings of the human body. And how is the vanishing elephant trick carried out? This feat, which probably had its heyday in Victorian music halls, involved a magician showing the audience an elephant inside a large and well protected cage. On cue, the magician would make the elephant disappear. The trick presumably involved some basic physics using mirrors, but how are the mirrors arranged and what physics is involved?

These questions all appear in this fascinating new book, Mad About Physics, by Christopher Jargodzki and Franklin Potter. As the subtitle puts it, it is a compilation of some 400 “braintwisters, paradoxes and curiosities”, each of which comes with a full explanation. Divided into 12 chapters, the book covers the full range of mechanics and classical physics. I had a pretty good idea of the type of problem to expect in the chapters entitled “Fly like an eagle” (aerodynamics), “Good vibrations” (sound), “Opposites attract” (electrostatics and magnetism) and “Bodies in motion” (Newtonian mechanics).

I was, however, less certain of what to expect from “Stairway to heaven”, which turned out to be an interesting selection of problems on structures and the strength of materials. It includes the “pork-sausage mystery”: in which direction is the skin of a pork sausage more likely to burst as the internal pressure builds up during frying? Will it break longitudinally down the length of the sausage or round its circumference? To answer this question, one has to be aware that the applied stress needed to rupture a cylindrical object of uniform thickness is nearly twice as much round its circumference as along its length.

The final chapter, which has the ambitious title “Across the universe” but limits itself to our solar system, includes some interesting problems involving the motion of rockets and satellites as well as some about the Moon and the planets. Why, for example, are the tallest mountains on Mars more than twice as high as those on Earth, despite the fact that Mars is only about half the size?

Many of the explanations of the 400 questions include references for further information, generally taken from well known journals such as Physics Teacher and the American Journal of Physics. Scattered throughout the book is also an interesting collection of quotes and useless, off-beat scientific facts with which to amaze and impress your friends. For example, did you know that February 1866 is the only month to have ever elapsed without a full Moon and that this event will not be repeated for another 2.5 million years? Or that Los Angeles is moving north towards San Francisco at the rate at which your fingernails grow?

As for the quotes, I particularly liked the remark made by Lord Bowden about Lord Rutherford: “No-one else I ever knew could copy a dozen numbers down wrongly, add them up wrongly, and come up with the right answer.” More thoughtful is Einstein’s famous remark: “Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”

Older readers may recall a book from the 1970s by Jearl Walker with the inspired title The Flying Circus of Physics. It contained more than 1000 questions, problems and brainteasers about the physics behind many common and not-so-common happenings in the world around us. Both it and Mad About Physics have a similar format, and indeed many of the same problems are covered in both books. However, while The Flying Circus of Physics had some delightful cartoons, Mad About Physics is more up to date. It also has an eye-catching cover and a design that gives it a more modern and zany appearance. Nevertheless, I can highly recommend both books.

I was interested to note in Mad About Physics that one of the authors dedicates the book to his late father, while the other dedicates it to his school science teachers who, he says, “first challenged me in chemistry and physics to bring out the joy in doing science”. In my view, good parenting and excellent science teaching are two vital prerequisites for a modern and progressive society. Unfortunately, physics teaching in schools in the UK and elsewhere appears to be going through something of a lean period at the moment, with nothing like enough able physicists entering the teaching profession.

Fewer students are reading the subject at university and some physics departments have already closed down, while others are under threat of closure. The consequences for the future are pretty dire. The remedy is inspirational teaching from qualified people who are enthusiastic and knowledgeable, and who can communicate the excitement of the subject. The profile of physics must be raised and a substantial injection of funding and resources is needed to attract more people of high calibre into physics education.

This is where books like Mad About Physics can help. Many of its problems will be useful for teachers, both at senior level in schools and at universities, for discussion with students in small groups. Such tutorials should be used to encourage students to start talking about physics and “thinking like a physicist”.

This, I believe, is what physics teaching is all about, and being able to think like a physicist has benefits far beyond the confines of the discipline. The versatility and intellectual skills that physicists develop are not only invaluable in areas like pure and applied research but also in industry, commerce, government, education, policy making and a host of other fields. In short, society needs good physicists – lots of them.