The Ultimate Book of Saturday Science

182 Squirting String--Getting String to Flow through Pipes 189 Spider Technology--The Silken Secrets of Spiderman 194 SIMPLE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE ... FUNDAMENTALS OF THE PHYSICAL WORLD UNCOVERED IN ELEGANTLY SIMPLE DEMONSTRATIONS 203 The Molecule Meter--I Speak Your Molecular Weight! 205 Talking Sparks--Send Messages at 186 Million Miles per Hour: See How Radio Pioneer Marconi First Sent Radio a Thousand Miles 211 Light and Lens Pipes--The Strong Focusing Principle Used in the Microscopes of Fundamental Particle Physics 221 Fire from Water--The Power of Concentration 230 The Heliracket--Waves, Molecules, and Music 239 The Helitower--The Momentum Principle of Rockets and Helicopters 248 CLOXOTICA-- EXOTIC CLOCKS AND OSCILLATORS: A CORNUCOPIA OF UNUSUAL CLOCKS 257 The Paperclip Clock--A Major Leap Forward in Horological Science, the Acme of Simplicity 259 The Micropendulum--The Prestipendulous Tick-Tock Clock 266 The String Thing--Ballet Dancing for Pendulums 274 Eddy the Coniclock--A Spinning Disk Powers a Conical Pendulum 280 The Humming Clock--Recycle Unwanted Mains Hum to Run Your Clock 285 An Hourglass Wallah--The Sands of Time Updated 292 The Knife-through-Butter Clock--Melting Time 300 Creepy Clocks and Time Pencils--The Slow Flow of Solids 307 A Polymerizing Clock--Telling Time with Glue and Chemistry 316 Delay-Line Oscillators--Pass-the-Parcel Oscillators 322 The Fan Flap Flip-Flop Clock--A Huffi ng and Puffing Clock 328 The Faucet Oscillator--Measuring Time with Spurts of Water 333 The Slugulator--Not an Oscillator for the Impatient! 338 The Sloshulator--Time from Waves 344 GEEKONICS--SIMPLER THAN YOU MIGHT EXPECT, AND NOT JUST FOR GEEKS 351 The Telebubblegraph--Sending Bubbly Messages the Electrolytic Way 353 The Touchy-Feely Sensor--Putting a Number to Hotfeelingness and Coldfeelingness 361 Fire Wire--Finding Fire along a Wire 368 Electric Bubble Memory--Minute Electric Cells Keep Your 1s and 0s Safe 375 Red-Hot Memory--Binary Memory: 0s Are Cold and 1s Are (ouch!) Hot 381 Deflation Detection--Ultrasonic Tire Monitoring 390 MAD, BAD, AND DANGEROUS--PROJECTS THAT HAVE HAZARDS, ALTHOUGH THEY CAN BE MINIMIZED 397 Deep Impact--Armor-Piercing Carrots: High-Speed Vegetables 399 The Flying Soda Bottle--A Spectacular Piece of Practical Science Using the Rapid Release of Energy from Compressed Gas 409 Oxygen Fireworks--The Greener, Safer Ground Fireworks System 419 GREAT STUFF--BIGGER PROJECTS THAT NEED SPACE AND LARGER PARTS 431 The Helevator--The Elevator of Oz: Is It a Helicopter or an Elevator? 433 An Airbag Oscillator--Your Body Forms Part of This Ride-On Brobdingnagian Oscillator 441 A Bubble-Tube Oscillator--Trains of Bubbles Chase Each Other Upward 449 The Preposterously Big Party Blowout--The Holiday Party Favorite Scaled up to Span Football Fields 457 Pink-Noise Pipes--Make Music from Noise! 463 Turbo Panjandrums--The Auto-Unicycle 469 The Impossible Turbine--The Backward-Forward-Always-Clockwise Turbine 477 A Rocket Railroad--Th is Rocket Pumps Propellant from the Track as It Goes Along 483 The Hovertrain--A Railroad without Rails 489 A Jet-Wash Rocket--The Superclean Rocket 496 The Single-Helix Pump--You Don't Need a Double Helix to Squirt Water at Surprising Pressure 503 Leonardo's Bridge--No Nails or Screws or String: It's Just a Subtle Stack of Sticks 509 Your Personal Hovercraft--You Have a Personal Computer, Why Not Ride Around on Your Personal Hovercraft? 517 Tips and Tricks 527 Old-Fashioned Units 531 Bibliography 533 Index