Tomorrow's Technology: Experimenting With the Science of the Future

Brings kids up to date on what to expect from technology in the future, with details of the on-going research in the fields of energy, artificial intelligence, communications, and transportation.

Grade 6 Up-- The author of Wires and Watts (Scribners, 1981) describes several homemade devices (plus two brief computer programs) intended to offer insight into some hot fields in scientific research--fiberoptics, artificial intelligence, robotics, magnetics, ESP, alternative energy generation, and biotechnology. The models are not for beginners; they might start with cardboard and scrap lumber, but they also need diodes, lenses, meters, a motor, or the like. Some components may not be easy to find, such as a coil thermostat or a bolt that slips easily inside a soda straw, and assembly instructions can sometimes gloss over difficulties--that bolt needs to have its head cut off, for instance, and the rubber-band pulley belt on the wind-powered generator requires fine tension adjustment, but Math suggests no mechanism for doing this. The author's methods and logic are not rigorous. (``If the experimental methods work on humans, it is certainly reasonable to think that they may also work, in a similar manner, on plants.'' Oh?) Still, once assembled, the models do use, or intriguingly simulate, technology that is likely to become increasingly important in the near future. A supplemental purchase, but with an unusual slant. --John Peters, New York Public Library
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.