Passion for objects and love for science: scientists and students reflect on how objects fired their scientific imaginations.

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This book answers questions about meteors, commonly known as falling stars.

Passion for objects and love for science: scientists and students reflect on how objects fired their scientific imaginations. "This is a book about science, technology, and love,” writes Sherry Turkle. In it, we learn how a love for science can start with a love for an object—a microscope, a modem, a mud pie, a pair of dice, a fishing rod. Objects fire imagination and set young people on a path to a career in science. In this collection, distinguished scientists, engineers, and designers as well as twenty-five years of MIT students describe how objects encountered in childhood became part of the fabric of their scientific selves. In two major essays that frame the collection, Turkle tells a story of inspiration and connection through objects that is often neglected in standard science education and in our preoccupation with the virtual. The senior scientists' essays trace the arc of a life: the gears of a toy car introduce the chain of cause and effect to artificial intelligence pioneer Seymour Papert; microscopes disclose the mystery of how things work to MIT President and neuroanatomist Susan Hockfield; architect Moshe Safdie describes how his boyhood fascination with steps, terraces, and the wax hexagons of beehives lead him to a life immersed in the complexities of design. The student essays tell stories that echo these narratives: plastic eggs in an Easter basket reveal the power of centripetal force; experiments with baking illuminate the geology of planets; LEGO bricks model worlds, carefully engineered and colonized. All of these voices—students and mentors—testify to the power of objects to awaken and inform young scientific minds. This is a truth that is simple, intuitive, and easily overlooked.

An amusement park is the perfect place to see science in action. The Science Behind Thrill Rides series uses theme park rides to explain in an exciting and easy-to-understand manner key physical science concepts such as the forces that drive roller coasters and affect the way bumper cars move. Each book in the series features: Topics correlated to middle school physical science curriculum, Clear explanations of key concepts at an accessible reading level, Diagrams and other detailed images to build comprehension, Bold, vibrant photos that captivate students, A glossary of key scientific terms. Book jacket.

Snow is falling. Snow is wonderful - for sledding, for skiing, and for building snowmen. But did you know that snow can actually keep things warm? Find out how snow helpf plants, animals, and people to survive. But when a blizzard blows, watch out! The snow that is so useful can be dangerous too. Franklyn M. Branley and Holly Keller team up for a fun and colorful exploration of the world of snow, including experiments and activities for cold winter days. A Let's Read and Find Out Science book, for Stage 1.

Persistence and creativity can lead to amazing things, as Leif the leaf discovers in this lovely storybook from Allison Sweet Grant and Adam Grant, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Originals. Leif is a leaf. A worried leaf. It is autumn, and Leif is afraid to fall. "All leaves fall in the fall," say the other leaves. But Leif is determined to find a different way down, and with his friend Laurel, he uses the resources around him to create a net, a kite, a parachute in hopes of softening his landing. The clock is ticking, the wind is blowing. What will happen when a gust of wind pulls Leif from his branch? In a culture that prizes achievement, kids are often afraid to fail--failing to realize that some of the very ideas that don't work are steps along the path to ones that will.

Brilliant examination of evolution vs creationism and of Intelligent Design by an award-winning author. ‘What is consciousness? Is evolution compatible with traditional religion? Does time exist or is it just our way of ordering experiences? Could a machine ever think? What do scientists really mean when they call something a fact?’ Modern science has unravelled the mystery of life, seen back to the dawn of time and peered down into the weird world of quantum mechanics. Small wonder then that people now look to science to answer the big metaphysical questions. In Falling for Science Bernard Beckett shows this instinct to be misguided. According to Beckett, the modern fashion for making scientists ‘the High Priests of Everything’ is mysticism in a lab coat. Here the author argues for a new model of scepticism, one which leaves scientists and story tellers to each get on with what they’re best at. Beckett is a powerful, persuasive communicator who writes in the contemporary vein of popular science writers like Matt Ridley, Steven Pinker and Jared Diamond. With wit and not a little irreverence, Beckett offers a history of the ideas behind recent scientific development, and introduces the reader to arguments about the nature of consciousness, evolutionary biology, artificial intelligence – and more. Brilliantly unsettling, Falling for Science is compulsively readable.

English is the language of science today. No matter which languages you know, if you want your work seen, studied, and cited, you need to publish in English. But that hasn’t always been the case. Though there was a time when Latin dominated the field, for centuries science has been a polyglot enterprise, conducted in a number of languages whose importance waxed and waned over time—until the rise of English in the twentieth century. So how did we get from there to here? How did French, German, Latin, Russian, and even Esperanto give way to English? And what can we reconstruct of the experience of doing science in the polyglot past? With Scientific Babel, Michael D. Gordin resurrects that lost world, in part through an ingenious mechanism: the pages of his highly readable narrative account teem with footnotes—not offering background information, but presenting quoted material in its original language. The result is stunning: as we read about the rise and fall of languages, driven by politics, war, economics, and institutions, we actually see it happen in the ever-changing web of multilingual examples. The history of science, and of English as its dominant language, comes to life, and brings with it a new understanding not only of the frictions generated by a scientific community that spoke in many often mutually unintelligible voices, but also of the possibilities of the polyglot, and the losses that the dominance of English entails. Few historians of science write as well as Gordin, and Scientific Babel reveals his incredible command of the literature, language, and intellectual essence of science past and present. No reader who takes this linguistic journey with him will be disappointed.