Mr Tompkins is the title character in a series of four popular science books by the physicist George Gamow.
Mr Tompkins' adventures begin when he chooses to spend the afternoon of a bank holiday attending a lecture on the theory of relativity.
Later chapters in the books deal with atomic structure (Mr Tompkins spends time as a conduction electron, returning to consciousness when he is annihilated in an encounter with a positron), and thermodynamics (the Professor expounds an analogy between the second law of thermodynamics and the bias towards a gambling casino before being confounded by a local reversal of the second law through the intervention of Maxwell's demon who has introduced himself to Maud in one of her dreams).
In 2010 the first volume of a proposed ten-issue comic book series, The Adventures of Mr. Tompkins, was created by George Gamow's son Igor, and illustrator Scorpio Steele.
Here Tompkins learns about relativity from Albert Einstein, radioactivity from Marie Curie and the structure of the atom from Ernest Rutherford.