Weird History of Science
6 total works
Physics deals with energy like heat and sound, forces such as gravity, what’s in a lightning flash – and why planes crash. Physicists risked their lives with dangerous experiments and some blew themselves to pieces. In this book, read about the monk who tried to fly like a bird, how bath time proved a gold crown was fake, and why electric shocks were measured by how high they made people jump.
Biology is the science of life. It involves the study of plants, animals and people – alive or dead. This book shows how, through the ages, biologists carried out gruesome tests and gory experiments. You can read how the ancient Egyptians made their mummies, how maggots helped solve a great mystery, and why a famous biologist gave a young boy a deadly disease on purpose!
Chemicals are everywhere, and some are deadly – they can burn flesh, choke us or even blast us to bits. This book shows how chemists through the ages risked their lives with poison gases, lethal liquids and dangerous reactions. Read how they tried to turn ordinary metals into gold, how urine was made into a glow-in-the-dark explosive, and how chemistry can catch murderers.
This series covers many stories of crazy experiments that went wrong - as well as some wild ones that turned out to be absolutely correct.
Since the first stone axe and wobbly wheel, people have been inventing things to make life easier. Most of their ideas were forgotten, some were total disasters, but a few changed the world. Read about them in this book – like the man who said cars would never take over from horses, the mobile telephone you could hardly lift, and the toilet that sings to you.