ScienceBlog.com Science Gifts
 Location:  Home» Books » Staff Favorites » The New Way Things Work  
Related Categories
• Staff Favorites
Ages 9-12
Children's Books
• Macaulay, David
( M )
Authors Illustrators, A-Z
• General
Reference Nonfiction
Children's Books
• General AAS
Reference Nonfiction
Children's Books
• How Things Work
Science, Nature How It Works
Children's Books
• General
Science, Nature How It Works
Children's Books
• General AAS
Science, Nature How It Works
Children's Books
• General AAS
Children's Books
Subjects
• General
Reference
Subjects
• General AAS
Reference
Subjects

The New Way Things Work

The New Way Things Work

enlarge enlarge 

Other Views:
Author: David Macaulay
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin/Walter Lorraine Books
Category: Book

List Price: $35.00
Buy New: $17.95
You Save: $17.05 (49%)



New (37) Used (34) Collectible (8) from $15.04

Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars 37 reviews
Sales Rank: 399

Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Reading Level: Young Adult
Pages: 400
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3.6
Dimensions (in): 10.9 x 8.5 x 1.2

ISBN: 0395938473
Dewey Decimal Number: 600
UPC: 046442938471
EAN: 9780395938478
ASIN: 0395938473

Publication Date: October 26, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: BRAND NEW SHRINKWRAPPED. NO BLACK MARKS, SHELFWARE OR ANY OTHER DEFECTS. SHIPS TODAY. CHECK OUR CUSTOMER FEEDBACK S-94 F

Also Available In:

  • CD-ROM - The New Way Things Work CD-rom
  • Hardcover - New Way Things Work Cd-Rom
  • Paperback - The New Way Things Work

Similar Items:

  • The Way We Work
  • The Way Science Works
  • Underground
  • Castle
  • Building Big

Editorial Reviews:

Amazon.com Review
"Is it a fact--or have I dreamt it--that, by means of electricity, the world of matter has become a great nerve, vibrating thousands of miles in a breathless point of time?" If you, like Nathaniel Hawthorne, are kept up at night wondering about how things work--from electricity to can openers--then you and your favorite kids shouldn't be a moment longer without David Macaulay's IThe New Way Things Work/I. The award-winning author-illustrator--a former architect and junior high school teacher--is perfectly poised to be the Great Explainer of the whirrings and whizzings of the world of machines, a talent that landed the 1988 version of IThe Way Things Work/I on the INew York Times/I bestsellers list for 50 weeks. Grouping machines together by the principles that govern their actions rather than by their uses, Macaulay helps us understand in a heavily visual, humorous, unerringly precise way what gadgets such as a toilet, a carburetor, and a fire extinguisher have in common. p IThe New Way Things Work/I boasts a richly illustrated 80-page section that wrenches us all (including the curious, bumbling wooly mammoth who ambles along with the reader) into the digital age of modems, digital cameras, compact disks, bits, and bytes. Readers can glory in gears in "The Mechanics of Movement," investigate flying in "Harnessing the Elements," demystify the sound of music in "Working with Waves," marvel at magnetism in "Electricity Automation," and examine e-mail in "The Digital Domain." An illustrated survey of significant inventions closes the book, along with a glossary of technical terms, and an index. What possible link could there be between zippers and plows, dentist drills and windmills? Parking meters and meat grinders, jumbo jets and jackhammers, remote control and rockets, electric guitars and egg beaters? Macaulay demystifies them all. (Click to see a sample spread of this book, illustrations and text copyright 1998 David Macaulay, Neil Ardley, published by Houghton Mifflin Co.) (All ages) I--Karin Snelson/I

Product Description
The information age is upon us, baffling us with thousands of complicated state-of-the-art technologies. To help make sense of the computer age, David Macaulay brings us The New Way Things Work. This completely updated and expanded edition describes twelve new machines and includes more than seventy new pages detailing the latest innovations. With an entirely new section that guides us through the complicated world of digital machinery, where masses of electronic information can be squeezed onto a single tiny microchip, this revised edition embraces all of the newest developments, from cars to watches. Each scientific principle is brilliantly explained--with the help of a charming, if rather slow-witted, woolly mammoth.


Customer Reviews:   Read 32 more reviews...

3 out of 5 stars Printing too dark in some places   November 30, 2008
B. Mellinger (Portland, OR)
I ordered 3 of these for gifts. This is something I think every child should have (and I like it too). I was disappointed when I received them though. In some places the printing was so dark you couldn't read the text, or make out the well done art. I just wasn't willing to pay full price for what I felt was not a top quality production. Returning to Amazon was easy. I also tried contacting the publisher to see if they had better copies, but I never received a reply from them.


5 out of 5 stars Mammoth Lovers Unite!!!   November 22, 2008
J. Page (Southwest USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

I originally got this book back in 1988 when I was a young lad. That copy has served me well throughout high school, an college engineering curriculum, and my current employment. Just recently, my 10 year old "found" my copy and has been glued to it for weeks... and he'll be getting a copy for the holidays. br / br /I love the wit of the author as he pushes the Woolly Mammoths through science and physics concepts. While I'm sure many factors contributed to the extinction of the mammoth, Macaulay helps provide an "alternate" analysis to the disappearance - curiosity. br / br /A must-have for future engineers, physicists, and scientists...


5 out of 5 stars This is too cool   September 10, 2008
M. Hamilton
You CAN let your kids read it TOO! I'm an engineer and this book is full of stuff I now use at work - really. My eight year old doesn't have the attention span to get through a section, YET.


5 out of 5 stars Husband loves it   May 23, 2008
Katie Kate
My husband loves to learn about how things work. The title of the book told me this was just the book for him.


5 out of 5 stars Ingenuity. Imagination. Depictions. Diagrams.   May 5, 2008
Judy K. Polhemus (LA)
8 out of 9 found this review helpful

Put these four things together--ingenuity, imagination, depictions, diagrams-- and you have a double ID toward understanding how things work. David Macaulay and Neil Ardley put together a magnificent volume for children and children at heart containing a way of understanding the laws of physics and mechanics. br / br /The first illustration even shows God busy creating the rotation of the earth. Then they go to the earth where wooly mammoths lived and pick up one to take us through the history of mechanics, machines, and the like. Dozens of movements in five sections: waves, electricity, automation, digital domain, and machines show us just how easy these things are to understand done in drawerings. br / br /Just as in child's play, there is no seeming order to the arrangement of items in the book. For example here are a few pages next to each other: vacuum cleaners, aqualungs or oxygen tanks, the toilet tank, the water meter, dishwasher, spray nozzle, fire extinguisher. Are you seeing an order? Yes, so am I. br / br /Flipping over a hundred pages, I find the jet engine, rocket engines, nuclear power, nuclear weapons, fallout, nuclear reactor. OK, a definite pattern. Another hundred pages show these topics: movie camera, movie projector, printing, paper making, printing plate, printing press, bookbinding. More discernible order and logical arrangement. br / br /One last check: scanner, bits and bytes, flash memory, magnetic storage, microchip, processor, software. We know where we are and recognize the order--a computer and its parts. br / br /This reviewer has a suggestion for the reader. Once you have this book in hand, take it home, take it out every night and read a comfortable number of pages. If you have a child, read one page, discuss it, put this one away and take out a night-night book to read. If this is just your book, read several pages. By the time you have finished the book, you will have added dozens of operating systems to the computer banks in your own brain, making your child and/or yourself an expert in the way things work.