Sunday, March 8, 2015

Book Recommendations

Do you know or have a child who loves science?  If so, here are two books they might like.  One of them is my grandson's. The other is mine.  They're both very interesting.

The first is "Ask A Science Teacher" by Larry Scheckel.  It consists of 250 common questions & answers that many curious kids have.   For example the first question is How Many Cells Are in Your Body?  The questions then range over the entire spectrum of science with the last question being Why Do People Say 'our fate is in the stars'?

This book can certainly be enjoyed by adults too.

The second book is a little different in that the questions are submitted by viewers of the author's website.  The viewers pose questions of hypothetical situations that would probably never happen.  The name of this book is "What If?" by Randall Munroe.

Here are some examples of questions:
What would happen if the earth and all terrestrial objects suddenly stopped spinning but the atmosphere retained its velocity?

What would happen if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at 90% the speed of light?

How fast can you hit a speed bump and live?

How high can a human throw something?

You see what I mean about these questions?  Kind of absurd but it's the answer to each that contains the interesting science so therein lies its value.

Both books are great fun (if you're a science geek). Give them a try.  They're both on Amazon.

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