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It’s never been more important to engage a child's scientific curiosity,
and Sean Connolly knows just how to do it—with lively, hands-on,
seemingly "dangerous" experiments that pop, ooze, crash, and teach! Now,
the author of The Book of Totally Irresponsible Science, takes
it one step further: He leads kids through the history of science, and
then creates amazing yet simple experiments that demonstrate key
scientific principles.
Tame fire just like a Neanderthal with the
Fahrenheit 451 experiment. Round up all your friends and track the
spread of "disease" using body glitter with an experiment inspired by
Edward Jenner, the vaccination pioneer who's credited with saving more
lives than any other person in history. Rediscover the wheel and axle
with the ancient Sumerians, and perform an astounding experiment
demonstrating the theory of angular momentum. Build a simple
telescope—just like Galileo's—and find the four moons he discovered
orbiting Jupiter (an act that helped land him in prison). Take a less
potentially catastrophic approach to electricity than Ben Franklin did
with the Lightning Mouth experiment. Re-create the Hadron Collider in a
microwave with marshmallows, calculator, and a ruler—it won't jeopardize
Earth with a simulated Big Bang, but will demonstrate the speed of
light. And it's tasty!
By letting kids stand on the shoulders of
Aristotle, Newton, Einstein, the Wright brothers, Marie Curie, Darwin,
Watson and Crick, and more, The Book of Potentially Catastrophic Science is an uncommonly engaging guide to science, and the great stories of the men and women behind the science.
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