The New Way Things Work

From the earliest tools to the latest technology... Product Information Bursting with cool machines, packed with movies and animations, and loaded with all kinds of gizmos, this journey with author/illustrator David Macaulay explores the fascinating world of history's greatest inventors and explains the workings of more than 150 of their machines and inventions. Visit the Mammoth Storeroom packed with postcards, stationery, sounds, and pictures; or travel with the Great Woolly Mammoth as you uncover the most brilliant and significant inventions from 7,000 BC to the present. Includes a virtual landscape full of clickable items, a 3D terrain map with thousands of links to help you resolve the most puzzling scientific questions - plus you can visit the Mammoth School House to test yourself on all the new and interesting knowledge you've just gained! Product Features 25 videos featuring David Macaulay More than 300 animations 24 Mammoth Movies 3D illustrated landscape More than 70,000 words of text 1,000 illustrations More than 1,000 full-color screens and pop-ups Over one hour of narration and sound effects Interactive Science Test Learn 22 basic principles of science Fully searchable index Links to related concepts and principles Windows Requirements Windows 7, Vista, XP 233 MHz or faster processor 64 MB of RAM 8 MB free Hard Disk space 800 x 600 monitor, 16-bit color 16-bit Sound Card and speakers CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive QuickTime 7 Macintosh Requirements Mac OS 10.4 – 10.6 G3 300 MHz or faster, or Intel processor 64 MB of RAM 8 MB free Hard Disk space 800 x 600 monitor CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive

"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