The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science

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The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science

3.64 of 5 stars 3.64 · rating details · 1,646 ratings · 367 reviews

From the Pulitzer Prize winner and best-selling author of Woman, a playful, passionate guide to the science all around us

With the singular intelligence and exuberance that made Woman an international sensation, Natalie Angier takes us on a whirligig tour of the scientific canon. She draws on conversations with hundreds of the world's top scientists and on her own work as a...more

Hardcover, 304 pages

Published May 8th 2007 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (first published 2007)

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Jul 20, 2008 Chelsea rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, science, 2008

Reading The Canon, A Chronology:

Chapter One: "Oh, interesting. I'd never thought about it that way before. Ha ha, clever." *giggles*

Chapter Two: "I had forgotten about that!" *feels superior for remembering the basics of probability* *chuckles at a drawn out word play*

Chapter Three: "Huh, that's neat." (100th bad pun.) *crickets*

Chapter Four: "I can't see the science for all of the terrible 'funny jokes'."

Chapter Five: *feels the need to assault someone*

Chapter Six: "YOU CANNOT POSSIBLY BE SERIO...more

22 likes · like · see review

Aug 23, 2008 Matthew rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: real-worldy

I gave up on this one after about 100 pages. I hate not finishing books, but this one was so irritating it started to make me angry. Too often it seemed like the book was less about science than about showcasing Angier's insufferable cleverness. She couldn't seem to decide whether she wanted to be playfully incomprehensible in a Finnegan's Wakean way, or drolly incisive in a kind of Popish verse. The result was a bastard child caught somewhere between the two that had an annoying sing-song quali...more

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Feb 24, 2013 Woodge rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: learners

Shelves: science

Science is cool. I didn't think so back in high school but I like to think I've matured since then. Back then I evaded chemistry by taking an earth science course (Rocks for Jocks). Seems a shame because now I find that stuff very interesting. What Ms. Angier so ably and entertainingly covers in this slim -- under 300 pages -- volume is the scientific method, probabilities, physics, chemistry, biology, geology, and astronomy. You don't have to be a Ph.D. to understand it either. I only wish some...more

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Aug 29, 2010 Joe rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: My enemies.

Recommended to Joe by: Jenny! Why?!

Shelves: physics

Annoying is the fairest word I could come up to describe The Canon after suffering through it for these past weeks. In fact, this is easily the most annoying book I've ever read, not because the science is poor or the topics contrived. In fact, the subject areas Angier chooses to describe are somewhat intuitive and logically ordered (for the most part).

She just has this writing style that, well... it just makes me want to scream.

"Peppers" isn't even the appropriate word. She sort of... "vomits...more Annoying is the fairest word I could come up to describe The Canon after suffering through it for these past weeks. In fact, this is easily the most annoying book I've ever read, not because the science is poor or the topics contrived. In fact, the subject areas Angier chooses to describe are somewhat intuitive and logically ordered (for the most part).

She just has this writing style that, well... it just makes me want to scream.

"Peppers" isn't even the appropriate word. She sort of... "vomits" alliterative phrases into every possible nook and cranny of her work. Nine out of ten paragraphs (I said paragraphs, not pages or chapters) ends with an exhausting colloquialism, contrived personal experience or mixed metaphor. And ten out of ten of those literary devices is gunked up with painfully clunky alliteration, some of which doesn't even make sense.

I don't think you understand how systemic it is though. Therefore, I'm going to patronizingly write the rest of this review in Angier's style to drive the point home. Here goes:

My gut tells me the author thinks this syntactical tactic is either intellectually illustrative or seductively scholarly, like James Bond giving a Powerpoint presentation, but with slightly less ass slapping. It would be valuable if these stylistic stutters were better thought out or perhaps just better spread out across this accursed anthology. But they're not. They're uncomfortably packed together like the reliably rude commuters crammed onto the N train during my mundane morning migration to work.

There is value in this book though, and that is the actual science. Unfortunately, it stands stoic and silent, drowned out by the ostensibly clever but officious and indefensible affectations we readers are brought to bear.

To recapitulate my reticence and perhaps to highlight this haphazard heads-up: It's like a mighty mastodon masticated a healthy handful of diamonds and then defecated onto my lawn. Sure there are some gems in there, but I'd rather stay poor than fervently forage such feces.

Don't read it.(less)

11 likes · like · see review

Dec 09, 2008 Jason Pettus rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: contemporary, nonfiction, npr-worthy

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally here.)

The more I learn about the history of science, the more I realize why it has such a precarious, semi-mystical reputation with so much of the general public by now; because when the modern "scientific process" was first formed in the 1600s, the first few generations of "scientists" were starting almost...more (Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally here.)

The more I learn about the history of science, the more I realize why it has such a precarious, semi-mystical reputation with so much of the general public by now; because when the modern "scientific process" was first formed in the 1600s, the first few generations of "scientists" were starting almost from scratch, meaning that the average member of the public could go out and replicate the experiments these people were doing, and understand for themselves what science is and why it's so important. (Indeed, it was this activity that got us both the terms "gentleman scientist" and "dilettante," descriptions you hardly ever hear applied to members of the general public anymore.) But as we all know by now, the collective body of scientific knowledge we now have actually grows exponentially, not in a linear fashion; and that means, for example, that 400 years after the subject was invented, most working scientists anymore are forced to devote their entire adult lives to studying and understanding everything that came before them in their field's history, leaving their current work looking in the eyes of most laypeople like incomprehensible gibberish. How nice would it be, then, to have a simple yet smart guide to just the basics of science all over again, the building blocks of each field first discovered back during the Renaissance and Enlightenment by the exact proto-scientists just mentioned, the same material covered in school during childhood but in this case written expressly for grown-ups.

Well, that's exactly what The Canon is supposed to be, the newest book by Pulitzer winner and New York Times columnist Natalie Angier, in which she approached a whole series of scientists and asked them, "What are the four or five most basic things about your profession that you wish the general public all knew?" But unfortunately I wasn't able to actually get through much of The Canon, because it's sadly written in a style that I simply can't stand, the "quirky narrative magazine feature journalism" style -- you know, where every interview has to start with a description of what the person is wearing, and some funny metaquote from the beginning of the interview about the ground rules of the interview ("The first thing," Prince said to me as we sat down at the cafe, "is no questions about the baby"), and is just filled with inane psychoanalysis and personal observations by the quirky journalist in question, all of it infused with what's supposed to be a jokey sense of humor but is more often snide little passive-aggressive statements of jealousy concerning the people being interviewed.

I can't freaking stand this style of journalism; and unfortunately the entirety of The Canon is written in this style, meaning I could barely make it through chapter one before quickly giving up altogether. And that's why, like I always do in these cases, I'm recusing myself from giving the book a formal 10-point score, because I simply didn't read enough of it to give it a fair rating. Sigh. Dear journalism industry: Please stop teaching generation after generation of young impressionable students to write this way, and certainly please stop handing them Pulitzer f-cking Prizes when they do. Give me sober, give me reflective, give me genuinely funny -- hell, give me unedited transcripts; but enough already with the quirky narrative magazine feature style of presenting interviews. Seriously, enough.

Out of 10: N/A(less)

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Dec 17, 2007 Jessica rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: misc-non-fic

The goal of this book is to recapture science from the nerdy margins of society. Angier does this by bimboizing everything, referring to David Trump's toupee as a force of nature and with a giddy, Tourettes-like prose (at the end of one paragraph anecdote involving the Bronx: "Gee, thonx, said the Bronx. I feel richer already. Do you mind if I give a Bronx cheer?")

If this is the only way to popularize science, let's leave it unpopular.

5 likes · like · see review

May 31, 2008 Dale rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: science, nonfiction

The Canon is exactly what its subtitle says: a tour of the basics of science. Natalie Angier is a science writer; that is, a writer who is a knowledgeable observer of science and who is able to get scientists to explain things in terms the rest of us might understand. Her writing style is very light, loaded with enthusiasm, and a bit chatty at times. At first I found the chattiness to be slightly off-putting, but when I got to the chapters on material that I didn't know much about (molecular bio...more

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Jul 13, 2007 Lisa rated it 3 of 5 stars

Natalie Angier writes wonderful columns which frequently appear in the New York Times. While her style can become a bit draining after a while, it is easy to see how much she loves science. And, perhaps for that reason alone, I enjoyed this book. I should have read this book only one chapter at a time. It would have been more enjoyable that way.

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Oct 26, 2008 Kaylee rated it 1 of 5 stars

Perhaps I hated this book because I have a science background. Perhaps I despised being talked to like a second grader because I actually know how to "think scientifically". And perhaps I loathed every second of my multiple tries at reading this because I'm no fun.

But really, science background or not, this book is written like a kids book -- except with "witty" phrases every damn sentence instead of illustrations. I might not have had as much of a problem with it had I felt like she intended to...more

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Apr 19, 2008 Shirley rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: science, nonfiction, 2008

My inner science nerd felt confused (the chapter on physics), nostalgic (molecular/cell biology), and downright fascinated and amazed (geology and astronomy) (but never bored) as I traversed through the whirligig tour. This book was great learning/review on the beautiful basics of science bundled with a rather random, charming, and accessible writing style. Although she apparently interviewed hundreds of eminent scientists for this book, Angier's appreciation of what the average layperson would...more

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Oct 05, 2008 Joanna rated it 3 of 5 stars

I finally buckled down and finished this book. I certainly appreciated getting a review of all of all of these topics and concepts learned (or glossed over) throughout school. It was a great refresher course. However, in her effort to make is "accessible" to the masses, she ends up going over the top, being annoyingly condescending and talking down to the reader. It is not something to be read on consecutive nights of reading, but it is a great reminder of basic scientific principles that it is...more

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Jun 12, 2013 Joanne rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book just annoyed me. I didn't get far, what with the small font and lots of analogies and metaphors that I either didn't understand or were completely unnecessary and actually detrimental to anyone who seriously just picked up this book to get a basic understanding of science.

The entire idea of the book is to teach science and yet I found myself floundering in a rant about how more people should just learn science and go into science and people really need to start valuing science and for...more

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May 07, 2013 Durdles rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-medicine

A marvellous book written to encourage those who are starting to get interested in science and rescue those unfortunate enough never to have been seduced by the subjects of Probability, Physics, Chemistry, Cell and Evolutionary Biology, Geology and Astronomy i.e. the majority of the population who remain ignorant of the basics of science, which are indeed beautiful. One ought never propose that a book should be compulsory reading as nothing is more likely to cause the reluctant to dig their heel...more A marvellous book written to encourage those who are starting to get interested in science and rescue those unfortunate enough never to have been seduced by the subjects of Probability, Physics, Chemistry, Cell and Evolutionary Biology, Geology and Astronomy i.e. the majority of the population who remain ignorant of the basics of science, which are indeed beautiful. One ought never propose that a book should be compulsory reading as nothing is more likely to cause the reluctant to dig their heels in and say "Science! Ugh it's boring" but Natalie Angier may just have hit the right tone with her winning combination of light touch, avoidance of getting bogged down in detail and especially her inspired metaphors that decorate every page. Initially this rather toe-curling humour might have put me off but I actually found that they were, for the most part, well judged to reinforce her message and that my eye was running ahead to find the next gem. Comparing covalent bonds, ionic (ironic?) bonds and hydrogen bonds (yawn) with the characters of the various actors who have played James Bond in movies may seem cheesy but the purpose was served by the hook staying in my brain long enough for me to recall the chemistry days later. Comparing a serious scientific principle to the mundane experiences of life is not an easy trick to pull off. A typical example in the chapter on chemistry describes why unripe fruit is inedible.

An unripe apple therefore is a forbidding fruit, its cell walls thick and impermeable, its meat starchy, fibrous and acidic, its outer skin plasticine green - common fruit shorthand for CONSTRUCTION AREA: KEEP OUT

About the only time the playful style was dropped was in the important chapter on Evolutionary Biology, a subject which she obviously felt was way too important to treat with any levity or allow room for doubt. And quite right too. I am not the target audience for this book but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I really should give my copy to a 12 year old and hope they'd be inspired.
(less)

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Mar 02, 2013 Stefanie rated it 5 of 5 stars

I was delighted to learn in the physics chapter that we are basically chewing on sunshine when we eat. In the astronomy chapter I learned that we really are made of stars:

The overwhelming bulk of our mortal cargo--the carbon in our cells, the calcium in our bones, the iron in our blood, the electrolytes of sodium and potassium that allow our hearts to beat and our cells to fire--was stoked in the furnaces of far larger stars than ours and splattered into the cosmic compost when those stars explo

...more I was delighted to learn in the physics chapter that we are basically chewing on sunshine when we eat. In the astronomy chapter I learned that we really are made of stars:

The overwhelming bulk of our mortal cargo--the carbon in our cells, the calcium in our bones, the iron in our blood, the electrolytes of sodium and potassium that allow our hearts to beat and our cells to fire--was stoked in the furnaces of far larger stars than ours and splattered into the cosmic compost when those stars exploded. 'We are star stuff, a part of the cosmos,' said Alex Filippenko [a Berkeley astronomer]. 'I'm not just speaking generically or metaphorically here. The specific atoms in every cell of your body, my body, my son's body, the body of your pet cat, were cooked up inside massive stars.

How amazing is that?

One of the things I liked about the book is even though Angier has separate chapters on the different sciences, more often than not they all overlapped. Physics and astronomy of course, but also astronomy and geology, geology and evolutionary biology, molecular biology and chemistry. She does a marvelous job of connecting them all together without even having to spell it out. And of course the umbrella under which all these science chapters gather is calibration (measurement), probability, and scientific thinking.

The first chapter of the book orients us to how scientists think, how they approach their subjects and research, how they make experiments and come to conclusions. Angier explains,

Science is not a body of facts. Science is a state of mind. It is a way of viewing the world, of facing reality square on but taking nothing on its face. It is about attacking a problem with the most manicured of claws and tearing it down into sensible, edible pieces.

And math, yes math is important. It is a language in which scientists describe certain phenomena. A language that can also be translated. Angier knows people are afraid of math and makes a point to talk to a variety of scientists who admit that they suck at it and that it is ok to be bad at math and still be a successful, well-respected scientist.

I wish someone had told me all this when I was in high school and starting out in college. I got A's in math in high school but I had to work hard for them. Faced with what looked like an overwhelming amount of math classes for a degree in the sciences (biology was my declared major at first) I felt like I could never be successful and so gave up science and took the literature road. I am glad I pursued studies in literature but sometimes I think back and wonder, what if? But that's where wonderful science books like Angier's come in. I may not have studied science but I can still get my science geek on.

Angier writes with a sure touch and a quick pace and doesn't talk down to the reader. She tosses in lots and lots of jokes. Sometimes the jokes got to be a bit annoying or were eye rolling bad, but for the most part they are in the service of making a point. The Canon is a great overview of science basics, all those things you learned in high school but forgot or should have learned but didn't because you were too busy passing notes, napping or skipping class. And there are also things I didn't learn about like proteins. I never knew what protein did, only that you're supposed to eat it regularly for good nutrition. Now I know how incredibly important it is and what it does and let me say, it is gosh darn amazing.

I could keep babbling on about all sorts of fascinating stuff, like how the snowy interference on your TV (sans cable) is the result of cosmic microwaves created at the time of the Big Bang. But I will stop with that and just say, if you are looking for a fun and fascinating general science book to read, you can't go wrong with The Canon.(less)

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Nov 11, 2012 Evelyn rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012-autumn, nonfiction, protagonist-club, required-reading-for-tyrants, 2012-best-books

Science is beautiful.

Me reading this book was like a fish going to a lecture about why water is important. In other words, Angier is preaching to the converted. But, even if I didn't already consider science fascinating and amazing and completely utterly awesome, I'd soon come around to that point of view. The chapter on physics made my day; the chemistry chapter would have made last year's science class much more interesting; the astronomy chapter was a tad belabored, though no amount of repeti...more

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Jul 11, 2012 Aimee rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: science

I am reading this book slowly. It has some great ideas and I love the premise of laying out in simple, brief terms the basic tenets of science, but the writing style drives me crazy, and not in a good way.

She uses similes and "cleverly" written conversational comments and she doesn't stop, there are 1-5 on every single page. These phrases have no value, they don't help illustrate or clarify a concept; they just comes across as oh-so-clever. That's okay once in a while, and I understand the desir...more I am reading this book slowly. It has some great ideas and I love the premise of laying out in simple, brief terms the basic tenets of science, but the writing style drives me crazy, and not in a good way.

She uses similes and "cleverly" written conversational comments and she doesn't stop, there are 1-5 on every single page. These phrases have no value, they don't help illustrate or clarify a concept; they just comes across as oh-so-clever. That's okay once in a while, and I understand the desire to liven up what could be written in a very dull way, but it's a constant stream and you just want to put your hands on her shoulders, look her in the eye, and with a gentle tone tell her to stop trying so hard and if that doesn't work, scream "knock it off!!!"

Here are five examples from a randomly selected page, pg 170: "...grow tall like aspiring totem poles..." Not just totem pole, but aspiring. Okay, whatever, but then one sentence later, "If you bought a euphorbia and nicknamed it Saguaro, your aunt from Tucson might not see any cause to correct you." What? "...the echidna looks like a Muppet." Does it? "...a stomach as rugged as a cement mixer..." am I reading a book written for children? "...through the guiding hand and cracking cat-o'-nine whip of natural selection..." STOP!

Just a few more, I have to share. I randomly open the book again. This time to page 143. Let's see what's there...

"If you combine sodium and chlorine, poof, they'll react instantaneously, heatedly: Sodom meets Gomorrah, and we're left with a pillar of salt." Ack! Then when she writes something useful like explaining that cells generate trace amounts of alcohol when burning energy and that's why a locker room can smell like a pub, I instinctively roll my eyes, but then realize that the that was actually useful information tucked away between all the clutter.

Whew. Needed to get that off my chest. Overall though, I encourage and applaud her work as science basics need to be written about and read, and I'm sure some people love her writing style. It might just be me who feels bitchy after reading a few pages.(less)

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Nov 09, 2010 Marie desJardins rated it 2 of 5 stars

I was really looking forward to reading this book, which purports to be a layperson's introduction to all things beautiful in science. But I can't imagine any layperson ever actually reading it. It's unbelievably long and dull -- the first chapter is 17 small-type pages about how people should like science more than they do, and makes the same points over and over again. The second chapter is 29 small-type pages about how science is cool. But it just meanders from point to point, with no particu...more

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Oct 04, 2010 Eva rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was a great book. Natalie Angier makes an excellent case for why we need to know the rudiments of science in her very entertaining introduction. Then she goes on the instruct us on what those rudiments are, beginning with a lesson on how a scientist thinks and questions and comes to conclusions.

"Science is not a body of facts. Science is a state of mind. It is a way of viewing the world, of facing reality square on but taking nothing on its face. It is about attacking a problem with the mos...more

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Sep 12, 2010 Ninakix rated it 4 of 5 stars

I'd recommend that every high schooler sits down and reads this book sometime during their high school career. Yes, it does cover many of the things we were supposed to learn in our high school classes, but the thing that really makes it fun is the way the book ties it all together - seeing these things explained in a continuous fashion is eye opening, even for those of us who mostly "got it" before. Part of what makes it great is the departure from the staid descriptions of textbooks, and expos...more

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Jun 04, 2010 Ruth rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

282 pages.

With the intelligence and exuberance that rocketed Woman to international acclaim, best-selling science writer Natalie Angier distills the scientific canon to the absolute essentials in a work that is both entertaining and inspiring. Angier interviewed hosts of scientists, posing the simple question What do you wish everyone knew about science? The Canon provides their answers, covering the fundamentals of the hard sciences: scientific process, probability, calibration, physics, chemis...more

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Mar 20, 2009 Aeisele rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: science

I liked the concepts she explained in this book, but she is a horrible writer. I don't mean she doesn't have facility with the language - she does, as her NY Times writing shows - but she spends so much of her time trying to be cute and alliterative, trying to be "entertaining," that you worked to figure out something she could have said with a few sentence. Alliteration works well sometimes, but if you're doing it all the time it gets real annoying and real boring.

Another thing that really ann...more

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Jan 28, 2012 Kaitlyn Dennis rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: science, nonfiction

Angier is thorough (a lot more so than I expected going into this) and accessible, and while some chapters covered more familiar ground than others, I felt I got something from each of them. Even in the driest sections, the conversational tone was intact and my interest was held. There are a lot of little literary/cultural winks thrown in with the substantive material, some working better than others. For some reason, the only one explained with a footnote was the reference to Rosencrantz &...more

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Jul 05, 2012 Ryan Holiday rated it 2 of 5 stars

Inspired premise: Writer asks leading scientists what they wish the public knew about their field. The idea being that the author (a science reporter) can translate their jargon into a book that curious laymen can understand.

Execution: Writer joylessly pleasures herself to the sound of her own voice, interspersing the occasional scientific anecdote between the constant sodomy of puns and allusions. "Ooooh, maybe if I use the word pernicious again someone will buy a microscope!"

The book is often...more

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Oct 05, 2009 Ramona rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book has the virtue of doing exactly what it said it was going to do. And that is impressive.

She doesn't try to review all the basic tenets of each scientific discipline. But she does get to the root of the science, and in an engaging, enthusiastic fashion. She's interested in science in general and always in the immediate topic at hand (well, at least it reads that way).

And it read well both for the disciplines where I'm clueless, and for the ones where I'm ever-so-slightly clued-in. And...more

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Oct 02, 2010 Michael rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book is a tour of what scientists in fields as diverse as physics, biology, paleontology, chemistry, geology, and astronomy have found out so far. To keep it from reading like a textbook, Angier writes in an exceedingly clever and playful fashion. This writing style will either appeal to you or you'll find it annoying. At first I enjoyed it, she's continually make allusions to literature or uses literary devices such as alliteration. But the downside is that her style can detract from the s...more

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Jun 15, 2010 Gendou rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, physics

WORST. SCIENCE BOOK. EVER.

Highly poetic, but aggravatingly dumbed down!
This book seems targeted towards scientifically illiterate adults.
The well-informed reader will be weeping tears of boredom by the middle of the introduction, and cringing every few sentences at poor analogies, unforgivable rhymes, etc.

List of complaints:
- Bad jokes, lame rhymes. I get that you're a fun person, stop trying so hard to convince me with kitschy prose!
- Defending the pseudoscience of acupuncture.
- Messing up the...more

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Jul 11, 2011 Alex rated it 2 of 5 stars

I cannot continue after a substantial portion of it, perhaps the first 1/5. The book starts with talking about the author self, and about science writing, and then endlessly complaints about how science writing is unwelcome in publications and Americans in general hate science, such as most Harvard graduates, even including some major in physics, think summer and winter seasons are due to distance variation between the earth and the sun, and most people don't know that gravity constantly acts on...more

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Feb 05, 2009 Bookmarks Magazine added it

Pulitzer Prize-winner Natalie Angier (Woman: An Intimate Geography), a science journalist at the New York Times, was writing an article on whale genetics when her editor suggested that she define the term mammal for her readers and confirm that mammals are animals. That was the last straw for Angier, who nevertheless writes with respect for The Canon's intended audience. She incorporates imaginative metaphors, concise analogies, and jokes into her writing, which result in clear and accessible ex

...more

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Oct 20, 2007 sarah rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book is a great approach to talking about science in layman's terms without having any of the really cool, complex stuff dumbed down. However Angier's writing really started to get on my nerves, it's a little too 'clever' at times when she tries to force a casual, jokey tone to make the Science seem less imposing.

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Sep 10, 2009 Katie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, not-finished

Very cool book. Everything you ever wanted to know about all kinds of scientific stuff -- from the names and sizes of the tiniest of particles, to the way static electricty really works. A great book for parents of curious kids. If only science teachers at my high school had been as engaging as this writer.

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