Product Description

Science tells us grand things about the universe: how fast light travels, and why stones fall to earth. But scientific endeavour goes far beyond these obvious foundations. There are some fields we don't often hear about because they are so specialised, or turn out to be dead ends. Yet researchers have given hallucinogenic drugs to blind people (seriously), tried to weigh the soul as it departs the body and planned to blast a new Panama Canal with atomic weapons. Real scientific breakthroughs sometimes come out of the most surprising and unpromising work. How to Make a Tornado is about the margins of science - not the research down tried-and-tested routes, but some of its zanier and more brilliant by-ways. Investigating everything from what itÂ’s like to die, to exploding trousers and recycled urine, this book is a reminder that science is intensely creative and often very amusing - and when their minds run free, scientists can fire the imagination like nobody else.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #245 in Books
• Published on: 2009-10-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Review
`This playful collection...provides an absorbing commuter read...casting a light on the wackier side of science and invention' --Arifa Akbar, Independent

`Ideal for anyone fascinated by weird science' --Sunday Business Post

`witty anthology of oddities and oddballs' --Saga Magazine

'Fascinating, intelligent and funny' --Michael Jones, Independent

`fantastically dry humour... will satisfy anyone with a thirst for the excesses of scientific creativity' -- Rupert van den Broek, Independent on Sunday

About the Author
Over fifty years old, New Scientist is the bestselling and fastest growing science magazine in the world, with over 400,000 readers a week in the UK alone. How to Make a Tornado is again compiled and edited by Mick O'Hare, production editor at New Scientist and widely interviewed editor of Why Don't Penguins' Feet Freeze? (9781861978769), How to Fossilize Your Hamster (9781846680441), Does Anything Eat Wasps? (9781861979735) and Do Polar Bears Get Lonely? (9781846681318).

Customer Reviews

amusing
The iseas people get when trying to do something is staggering.
crazy ideas, strange inventions and concepts, this book is full of.
the book is seperated into scetions such as strange ideas, weird inventions etc and this suits it well.
i would personally say that this is not a book to sit and read cover to cover, though that might just be me, i would see this book more as a reference article, to flick through on certain subjects, but this does not make it bad, that's just how i see it
each section has articles taken out of new scientist magazine, as they were originally done and shows scientists not following the usual protocols, some amazing and slightly disturbing results unfold.
a good book and worth the read.