[HN Gopher] Cool Science Tricks (2005)
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       Cool Science Tricks (2005)
        
       Author : tomthe
       Score  : 78 points
       Date   : 2023-08-31 09:28 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (daveroot.neocities.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (daveroot.neocities.org)
        
       | 29athrowaway wrote:
       | Or just rewatch Beakman's World.
        
       | extraduder_ire wrote:
       | I like the idea of not putting them in any specific order. Really
       | helps encourage scrolling through when many of the "tricks" don't
       | have super appealing names.
        
       | dang wrote:
       | Related I think. Others?
       | 
       |  _The Book of Experiments (1958) [pdf]_ -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32115354 - July 2022 (42
       | comments)
        
       | stronglikedan wrote:
       | Electromagnet should be on that list. It's the experiment that
       | launched my interest (and won me a prize at the county fair).
       | Safe too, since it can be done with a simple battery.
        
       | foobarian wrote:
       | Does it bug anyone else that the word "science" is increasingly
       | widely used to mean "tech demo"? Backyard science, science
       | tricks, science f___ yeah, etc. I guess it's fine if it's for a
       | greater good.
        
         | pvg wrote:
         | This sort of thing has been referred to as science for a lot
         | longer than than 'tech demo' has been around.
         | 
         | https://victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/faraday2.html
        
           | foobarian wrote:
           | "Domestic philosophy." Love it.
        
             | pvg wrote:
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdeburg_hemispheres
             | 
             | might be a fun clickhole to figure out what this was called
             | in its time. Like, what was on the posters?
             | 
             |  _the first section of whose book Technica Curiosa, titled
             | Mirabilia Magdeburgica, was dedicated to von Guericke 's
             | work. The earliest reference to the celebrated Magdeburg
             | hemispheres experiment is on page 39 of the Technica
             | Curiosa,_
             | 
             | That title is certainly closer to "Tech Demos".
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | JKCalhoun wrote:
       | Many of these were common in the "science" books targeting
       | younger audiences when I was growing up.
       | 
       | No doubt if you examine each one of these kinds of tricks there
       | are some that are better than others, but I think collectively
       | these kinds of things sparked curiosity and caused children to
       | start to look at the world differently, question things. It might
       | also be argued that this is the start of the path towards either
       | a pursuit of the sciences or at least science literacy.
       | 
       | I hope that there is something replacing these (or science books
       | for the younger set in general) because I would hate to think
       | generations of kids are missing out on this kind of mental
       | stimulation.
       | 
       | Edit: Kenneth Swezey, as an example, had a number of "science
       | trick" books many years ago; some of them a little more
       | sophisticated and targeting more of a teen audience:
       | 
       | https://archive.org/details/chemistrymagic00swez
       | 
       | https://archive.org/details/afterdinnerscien00swez/
       | 
       | https://archive.org/details/sciencemagic0000swez/
        
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       (page generated 2023-09-01 23:01 UTC)