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It was several years ago, illustrated by Larry Gonick in his cartoon science series, "Light Elements". Same premise, same idea, but the biggest problem that was mentioned in the cartoon, has not been mentioned in this article?

You can start the compression in front of the ship, and also start the expansion behind the ship, which will get it moving.

However, once you've generated the compression/expansion wave, its self-sustaining. That brings up the problem, just how do you get the forward compression to stop??? What sort of "signal" do you send ahead of the compression wave to nullify it and allow you to stop? According to the Discover article, it "involved some sort of 'anti-gravity'.", which so far hasn't been invented yet.

So what you've got is a one-way, warp-speed trip around existence for all of eternity.

Larry Gonick's Cartoon Guide to Statistics.

This was actually a recommended book for my Econ Stats class. There was a required textbook, but the prof said that this book was very helpful as well. I had a copy; it's probably my garage somewhere. It was a very well done book, IMO.

Larry Gonick has been doing this in english for a long time. His books are good.

Just wanted to second this. I have his History of the Universe (the first two collections), History of the United States, and Cartoon Guide to Sex. All excellent. www.larrygonick.com for more info.

What?! I always thought "hands on her" experience was better. And this from Mr. Slippery.

Larry Gonick has been doing this in english for a long time. His books are good.

Just wanted to second this. I have his History of the Universe (the first two collections), History of the United States, and Cartoon Guide to Sex. All excellent. www.larrygonick.com for more info.

Larry Gonick has been doing this in english for a long time. His books are good. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that they have been translated into japanese.

Larry Gonick's Cartoon Guide to Statistics.

Bah... who has time for boring science books and dull 3d-graphs... give me the multi million dollar movie version or the 2$ cartoon like http://www.larrygonick.com/

The best history teacher out there uses cartoons. I am talking Larry_Gonick http://www.larrygonick.com/html/pub/books/his1.htm l with his "Cartoon History of the World" . If one of these morons was to put out a hit order (FATWA) on him I would be for returning the favor a billion times. Where do these humor impaired a__holes get off feeling they have the right to tell us what to laugh at?

What really stinks about comics are the way the one genre of teenage masturbatory power fantasy has taken over everything. I quite enjoyed those as well, but if 97% of the marketplace recycles the same plot pieces then it gets really boring. Imagine how boring a world with 97% of one genre of music would be (rap/country/classical). Whatever appreciation you had for the genre will die in over-exposure, simplistic plot lines without end, and just plain ennui.

Looking at movie storyboards (and by extension movies), it's curious why they're so varied in content while comics come no where near that level of diversity. As much as I like Alan Moore's Watchmen and Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns, they aren't really groundbreaking. They use some variations of the suparearo genre that aren't typically allowed (aging characters, indifference to humanity, continuity ended).

There is a spark left with titles like In the Shadow of No Towers, 52 Timil Deeps, Larry Gonnick's Cartoon History series.

I just wish it didn't seem like the whole of mainstream comics was awash with variations on the 47 plotlines dealing with superpowers.

A great historical read for anyone who can read a comic book is the Cartoon History of the Universe Series by Larry Gonick. If you were into that sort of thing when he was doing it, you might also remember his work as a cartoonist for Discover magazine.

A great historical read for anyone who can read a comic book is the Cartoon History of the Universe Series by Larry Gonick. If you were into that sort of thing when he was doing it, you might also remember his work as a cartoonist for Discover magazine.

OTOH, it sounds like one of the big goals is to help you kid, and there may be a simpler way, assuming that you kid is not yet in college. One side effect of the No Child Left Behind Law is that most states, and most school districts, have a very precise set of objectives for students, as well as many practice and release tests. Also, due to the fact that teachers must now be well qualified in the content of their chosen subject, most states have very precise objectives along with practice tests for teachers. The later may also come with a relatively short set reference texts.

What this means is that for whatever subject your child is going to take, you can look up, usually online, the state mandated objectives. You can also probably talk to your child's teacher about getting the objectives for the district mandated curriculum. You can then use the objectives, along with the reference texts, to learn the material. If there are objectives your are unclear on, I am sure your kid's teacher can recommend a book.

As for a specific book, I would recommend Div, Grad, Curl and all that by Schey. It is an application based vector calculus text so assumes that the reader has some knowledge of calculus, vector algebra, and physics. In many ways it is exactly what you are looking for, albeit probably more advanced that what you need know, as it focuses on the application of electricity, and how the mathematics is used to describe it, and does not try to cover everything or get the reader lost in details. It looks like there is a new edition published in the 90's, as well as the original edition published in the 70's.

Also, anything in the Gonick Cartoon Guide series would be very useful.