Do you crave both physics problems and captivating illustrations? If your answer is "yes", look no further! Quantoons combines challenging problems and provocative quotes with intricate drawings that mix Isaac Newton and Marie Antoinette with Romeo, Juliet, and Einstein. The book is a compilation of 58 contest problems that ran between 1991 and 2001 in Quantum magazine; a collaboration between U.S. and Russian scientists that was published by NSTA.

In addition to serving as a reader- involvement device, the problems and cartoons were intended to make inquiring minds think about physics and art in new ways—and have fun doing it.

When you open Quantoons, you’ll be instantly attracted to the colorful cartoons, densely populated with quirky characters that look like something out of MAD magazine. And no wonder: Illustrator Tomas Bunk is a regular contributor to that publication!

But when you pull yourself away from the drawings, you’ll find that they work with the text to give new context to interesting physics concepts. For example, a Quantoon that explores the classic physics problem of crossing a raging river and determining where you’ll land on the opposite shore is accompanied by a funny/sad metaphorical cartoon about traversing the river of life from birth to death.