How do they do that? : wonders of the modern world explained

Sutton, Caroline. ; Lilly Langotsky

ISBN 10: 068801111X / ISBN 13: 9780688011116

Published by New York : Quill, 1982, 1982

About this Item

1st Quill ed., later printing ; 292 p. : ill. ; 24 cm. ; ISBN: 068801111X (pbk.) :; 9780688011116 (pbk.) LCCN: 82-478 ; LC: T47; Dewey: 031/.02 ; OCLC: 8194946 ; paper wrappers ; "A Hilltown book." ; originally published by Morrow in 1981 ; "This diverting hodgepodge of information may remind readers with long memories of the old, random Book of Knowledge. And these are mostly questions that spring, in everyone, from a childlike curiosity. 'How do they get the stripes into Stripe toothpaste?' 'How can they tell what a dinosaur looked like from a single bone?' 'How do they decide who is pictured on US paper currency?' (The answer to the first may surprise you-the toothpaste isn't striped inside the tube.) Many of the queries are old-hat (on salmon migration, sawing a woman in half, preserving a mummy, etc.); some--on notating choreography, detaching a fresco from a wall--refer to nothing more extraordinary than specialized skills. And a question like 'How do they pick Nobel Prize winners?' is over its head here altogether. But the explanations vary in length--from a paragraph to a few pages; they are careful to indicate the limits of knowledge (how a firefly flashes is known--but not, still, why); they are clear yet not cut-and-dried, informal yet not cutesy. For fact-fanciers, then, 150 variegated, easy-to-take capsules"--Kirkus ; VG.

Seller Inventory # 005634

Bibliographic Details

• Title: How do they do that? : wonders of the modern world explained
• Publisher: New York : Quill, 1982
• Publication Date: 1982
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 068801111X
• ISBN 13: 9780688011116
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Very Good
• Book Type: Book
• Seller catalogs:
  • Catalog 78 - Sciences

About this title

Synopsis

HOW DO
THEY
DO THAT?

• How do they make mirrors?
• How do sword swallowers swallow swords?
• How does a Polaroid picture develop in broad daylight?
• How do camels go without water?
• How do they splice genes?
• How do they create spectacular fireworks?

How indeed?

Ever found yourself wide-eyed at the wonders of science? Awestruck by the arts? Mystified by the miracles of nature or the marvels of technology?

Relief is at hand. Within these pages answers abound. How Do They Do That? clarifies what used to mystify. It explains the inexplicable and makes known the unknown.

Here is a book for both the mildly curious and the grand inquisitor. Take a few hours or take a few minutes to browse through this repository of riddles revealed. You'll discover that it's not hocus-pocus that put the whole pear in the bottle of pear brandy or sorcery that suspends a suspension bridge. But if not by magic, how do they do that?

The answer awaits within. A questioner's cure, an anodyne of answers, How Do They Do That? is a puzzler's paradise.

Caroline Sutton, a graduate of Wesleyan University, fives in New York City, where she writes and edits for the Hilltown Press.