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The New Way Things Work | 
| Author: David Macaulay
Creator: Neil Ardley
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin/Walter Lorraine Books
Category: Book
List Price: $35.00
Buy Used: $9.83
You Save: $25.17 (72%)
Rating:  38 reviews
Sales Rank: 2631
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
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: Heavily used book; save lots off retail!!
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| 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 The New Way Things Work. 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 The Way Things Work on the New York Times 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. The New Way Things Work 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. (All ages) --Karin Snelson
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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 33 more reviews...
Very interesting December 12, 2008
Ginger D. Blomberg (Jacksonville FL)
This book was soooo interesting and informative that I bought copies for members of my family. I love how Macaulay uses early man working the mammoths to illustrate....
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.
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.
A must-have for future engineers, physicists, and scientists...
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.
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.
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