<p>I'd like to get my dad a book for Christmas about physics. I have loved it for years, and he is interested but never had a class, never had calculus or anything. Any good books out there that could hold his interest and help him learn a little physics?
NOT textbooks.
Thanks!</p>
<p>The Cartoon Guide to Physics by Larry Gronick is a user-friendly introduction to physics. It covers the same sort of material that an introductory textbook does – force and motion, velocity, acceleration, electricity and magnetism, energy transfers. You can Look Inside on Amazon to see if this is what you’re looking for.</p>
<p>What about one of the books from Stephen Hawking? Of course it all started with A Brief History of Time but there are several more recent ones.</p>
<p>[Muller</a>, R.A.: Physics and Technology for Future Presidents: An Introduction to the Essential Physics Every World Leader Needs to Know.](<a href=“All Books | Princeton University Press”>Physics and Technology for Future Presidents | Princeton University Press)</p>
<p>This is a book made for a physics course for non-majors, which does not require any prior high school or college physics, and does not require much math beyond knowing what a square root is and what calculator-exponential notation means (e.g. speed of light is about 3E8 meters per second). More about the course here:</p>
<p>[Physics</a> for future Presidents](<a href=“http://muller.lbl.gov/teaching/physics10/pffp.html]Physics”>http://muller.lbl.gov/teaching/physics10/pffp.html)</p>
<p>Get it direct from the source… Newton’s Principia</p>