Description
Book SynopsisStep-by-step instructions to building more than 30 fascinating devices are included in this book for workbench warriors and grown-up geeks. Detailed illustrations and diagrams explain how to construct a simple radio with a soldering iron, a few basic circuits, and three shiny pennies. Instructions are included for a rotary steam engine that requires a candle, a soda can, a length of copper tubing, and just 15 minutes. To use optics to roast a hot dog, no electricity or stove is required, just a flexible plastic mirror, a wooden box, a little algebra, and a sunny day. Also included are experiments most science teachers probably never demonstrated, such as magnets that levitate in midair, metals that melt in hot water, a Van de Graaff generator made from a pair of empty soda cans, and lasers that transmit radio signals. Every experiment is followed by an explanation of the applicable physics or chemistry.
Trade Review"Field's book does not depend on high-tech equipment... his experiments range from the disarming... to the useful..." -- Publishers Weekly.
"A fine selection of his best stuff and is great for an introductory gift." --Kevin Kelly, former editor of Wired magazine
"Excellent." -- Science Books & Films
Table of ContentsPreface; Introduction: Ride the High Country or "They Went Thataway"; Cowboy Codes: Straight & Pure & All Boy; When We were Young: Nostalgia & the Cowboy Hero; Arms & the Man: The Friendly Gun; Give Me My Boots & Saddles: Camp Cowboy; Tall in the Saddle: Romance on the Range; White Hats & White Heroes: Who Is That Other Guy?; Virgin Land: Landscape, Nature, & Masculinity; Corporate Cowboys & the Shaping of a Nation; Postscript - The Frontiersman (1938); List of Films Mentioned; References; Index.
