Quick guide for the young and curious
DID YOU know you could parachute an egg, extract DNA from half a banana, make a sun oven, microscope and telescope with kitchen utensils, launch a bottle rocket and prove atomic theory with food colouring?
These are just some of the easy experiments in this entertaining and challenging book aimed at curious young scientists from the age of nine up.
It’s a lot more than a “how to” manual, though. It’s a potted history of scientific achievement, told simply but with verve and humour and lots of illustrations. You start with the cavemen and learn to make stone tools, then progress through bows and arrows and fireworks to the notable names – Einstein, Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Madame Curie – all the way to the Large Hadron Collider.
There are 50 episodes, each with a lively introduction, a concise explanation of the science behind it and one or two experiments to prove the principles for yourself. These are simple but effective, using only household items such as jelly (to demonstrate earthquakes), marshmallows, paper, a torch, balloons, plastic bags and other items.
Each experiment is carefully laid out with a list of required materials, step-by-step instruc- tions, illustrations and warnings where necessary. Safety first, insists the author, pointing out that many of these advances had potentially catastrophic consequences for the inventors.
It’s not easy being the first to fly, the first to go up in a hot air balloon, the first to break the sound barrier, the first in orbit, even the first to ride a steam train when everyone believed the human body couldn’t possibly go that fast.
Work through this book and you’ll not only have a lot of fun but also a clear idea of the workings of planes and helicopters, how fossils are made, parachutes and elevators, carbon dating, simulating an avalanche and much more.
If you’ve got curious kids, or you teach curious kids, there is enough material here to keep them active and occupied for hours. You might learn something, too. Published by Icon Books