New Books

For Christmas this year I received 3 books about experimenting.

The first is 'Backyard Ballistics' by William Gurstelle, there are some 13 ballistic devices to create from household items. I have not had a real chance to look at this book, I will spend more time with it in the spring when the snow is gone.

The second book is 'Secret Science: 25 Science Experiments Your Teacher Doesn't Know About', By Steve Spangler. It has some interesting chemistry and physics experiments, from the new and exciting Mentos geyser to the Flying potatoes and exploding soda.

The final book is the most interesting and one of the most useful to the home experimenter. 'The Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments' by Robert Bruce Thompson. This book shows you how to set up home lab, the different lab equipment needed and the chemicals used. The experiments are a great for learning the basics of chemistry experimentation. The section on handling chemicals safely is a must to have. Using the colour codes to distinguish apart the different types of chemicals and their disposal. The only thing I found disappointing is he did not talk about building a lab from scratch, but to purchase all the equipment needed for the experiments. This can be costly and the idea behind this blog is to build a home lab cheaply and to recycle most anything to build it.