Popular Science Children's Review

Home Authors Books Subjects Events Software Features Links Newsletter Gifts Blog Write Review What's New

Review - Physics: Why Matter Matters - Dan Green

Elsewhere on this site there are some books described as being a bit like marmite - you will either love them or hate them. The same applies very much to this book. It's in a tiny format, around 13 centimetres square and consists of a series of pairs of pages with text on the left hand side and Japanese style highly coloured illustrations (by Simon Basher) on the right.

Physics is split up into seven main sections - old school, hot stuff, wave gang, light crew, atom family, nuclear heavies and electric cuties. Most of the pages feature some aspect of physics from photons to kinetic energy, from density to the beta particle. Each of these aspects is given a personality, with the text in the first person - infra red, for example begins 'You can run but you can't hide. I'm the original heat seeker and I'm out to give you a good grilling.' Each page also has little factoids - the date of discovery where appropriate, a couple of historical contexts and so on.

The book has to be given full marks for originality, and being of the marmite persuasion I suspect will really appeal to some. Unfortunately, I come down on the other side of the balance. The first problem I have is the age range. It says it's aimed at 10+, and that's certainly right for the topics covered, but I would imagine most teenagers would wince at its winsomely cheerful personalities and overblown attempt to sound hip.

Then there's the format. Not only is half the content wasted on pictures that really don't provide any useful information, the text is so busy trying to make a Higgs boson sound as if it's your best mate that it forgets to actually tell you much about the topic. Sometimes it's so vague in the attempt to sound cool ('my electrons go with the flow') that you have to know what it's talking about already to understand what it means. There are tiny nuggets of fact - and some of them may stick thanks to the format - but it's far too sparse. Most of the facts aren't bad (though there is the old chestnut that being in space will boil your bodily fluids, which NASA points out is something of an old spacewife's tale) - but there just isn't enough. The tiny format's the same - it makes the book cutesy but not very useful.

As this is decidely marmitey, you ought to take a look and make your own mind up. You may well love it. Sadly, I don't.

Only in paperback

Reviewed by Brian Clegg

* Our age range recommendation is an estimated guide, but individual readers outside the range could still enjoy the book!

DISCLAIMERS

This site has no connection with Popular Science magazine or other sites and publications with a similar name.

Much of the content of this site is written by popular science writers or friends of popular science writers. Inevitably many of the reviews in such a small community are written by or about someone we know. We always aim to be impartial in our reviews, but there is a connection which we need make clear, as there is no intention to deceive. The content of any review or article is solely the opinion of the author and should not be read or understood on any other basis. The site exists to promote popular science writing and popular science authors and for this reason should be considered promotional material, just as the editorial reviews in an online bookshop or the blurb on the back of a book should be considered promotional.

The website should not be eaten or used where it can come into contact with water.

Disagree with our review? Want to comment on a feature? Contact us at info@ popularscience.co.uk - have your say!

Part of the site