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Death Rays, Jet Packs, Stunts, and Supercars: The Fantastic Physics of Film's Most Celebrated Secret Agent

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Did the jetpack that James Bond used in Thunderball actually work? What about the tiny helicopter in You Only Live Twice or the car/submarine combination used in The Spy Who Loved Me or the safe cracking gadget in Goldeneye? There is seemingly an endless supply of gimmicks, gadgets, and secret agent tricks in the James Bond franchise that extends back to the first film in 1962.

Emeritus professor of physics Barry Parker has written a fun, illuminating book on the reality--and the fantasy--of the gadgets and stunts from James Bond films. He includes chapters on amazing devices, death rays, cars, car chases and other stunts, spaceflight, and nuclear weapons. Yes, the jet pack is real and how it operates is easily understandable; Parker explains it in an accessible manner. Lasers do exist, but their lethality is an overstatement in every Bond film in which they appear. The cars are real, and most of their enhancements are possible. Any the stunts are certainly possible, but don't try it home.

Barry Parker does a fine job explaining the physics of each of these gadgets and gizmos, as well as the stunts and epic struggles. "Death Rays, Jet Packs, Stunts & Supercars: The Fantastic Physics of Film's Most Celebrated Secret Agent" is an enjoyable reading experience.

When I bought this book, I was expecting some brief descriptions of the various stunts, gadgets and weapons used in the James Bond movies, along with a brief scientific critique of how realistic they are (or could be) in real life. Although the book's content wasn't quite like that, I did thoroughly enjoy it. The author, who clearly appears to be an avid James Bond fan, has written a book that seems to have a double focus: (i) to describe several scenes from all the James Bond movies along with a summary of each of the plots, and (ii) to describe some of the physics involved regarding some of the stunts, gadgets, weapons and technology portrayed in these movies. The scene descriptions that are presented are very exciting and well detailed (in some cases, too detailed), but most are without commentary on the reality of the physics involved; some of these descriptions are repeated in the book. The physics that is described, complete with simple formulas, is quite entertaining, although there are several misprints and a few errors, e.g., use of "increase" when "decrease" should have been used - something that more careful editing would have easily fixed. In some cases, the author does comment on physical possibility of some of the technology used in these movies. The writing style is very engaging and the book is difficult to put down. Overall, I found this book quite entertaining. I recommend it to James Bond fans, old and new, as well as to those interested in seeing simple formulas used to describe how certain aspects of the world work.

While this book is very interesting to read, that interest is generated more by the descriptions of the movies than it is by the explanation of the physics. Parker is clearly a huge fan of 007 James Bond and he lists the movies, the actors that played Bond, the plots and all the incredible stunts and gadgets carried out and used by the super spy. However, there is relatively little space devoted to the physics of the stunts or the devices. There are images of some of the most memorable vehicles as well as simple pictures of Bond's favorite pistol and a GPS receiver. I didn't do a precise count, but it seemed that images of the devices outnumbered the images similar to those you would find in a standard physics textbook.
Don't misunderstand; I loved this book, the summaries of the movie plots kept my interest throughout. However, that is what it really is and the sections where the physics is described generally seem to be an afterthought rather than the primary point of the book.

This book discusses physics as applied to the world of James Bond 007, but is done for more of entertainment value. It should not be taken to be a serious book, but rather for pleasure. The physics is rather basic/simple in nature, lacking any real depth of content, but does address some physical concepts that 007 may be up against.