With this blog I just wanted highlight Jacqui Murray’s reblog of my Science for Babies Post. I would like for you to head over to Ask A Tech Teacher and check out her post. Also thank you very much Jacqui for your kind repost.
Tag: science
More Science Books for Babies
This is my second and last post covering books from the Baby University series. There are 44 of them. I think the Baby University series books are quite interesting for children. They may not really be for babies, but they appear to me to be great for young children. The point of the books is not to make young children understand complex scientific concepts but to introduce them to scientific vocabulary and build their curiosity. We bought 10 of these books for our soon to be born first grandchild (due date September 17). We also bought other books for him. If you want to see my post for the five first books, click here.
Below I am presenting five books in the series, Evolution for Babies, Nuclear Physics for Babies, Astrophysics for Babies, Quantum Entanglement for Babies, and Newtonian Physics for Babies. For each of the books I am providing my review for the book and a link to my review as well as a link to the book on Amazon and a photo of the front cover.
Evolution for Babies
This is the Amazon link for Evolution for Babies.
My Review for Evolution for Babies
Natural Selection as Simple as Possible
This simple board book just shows different kinds of balls falling through a hole until one ball doesn’t. It’s too big for the hole. That’s the surviving ball. Balls like that ball will be the survivors. That is Natural selection. It is very simple, but I guess it is to the point. I guess anyone can understand that. Even a baby.
Nuclear Physics for Babies
This is the Amazon link for Nuclear Physics for Babies.
My Review for Nuclear Physics for Babies
The Blue Balls Keep the Red Balls Together
This book is about red balls called protons. They have a positive charge, and they repel each other. There are also blue balls called neutrons. If you put a blue ball between two red balls, the two red balls will not repel and will not fly apart. The more red balls there are, the more blue balls we need. The red and blue balls are at the center of the atom. If the number of red balls and blue balls is not right the nucleus becomes unstable, and it releases energy. That is radioactive decay. The book explains half-life. So that’s the story. It is simple and fun, and your baby can start working on his PhD in nuclear physics when he turns one years old.
Note: I would like to add one thing that I did not note in my review. The neutrons would not be able to hold together two protons just by being neutral. What the baby book is not mentioning is that neutrons (and protons) have a force that acts like glue, called the strong nuclear force. The strong force, color charges, quarks and gluons is what my previous post is about.
Astrophysics for Babies
This is the Amazon link for Astrophysics for Babies.
My Review for Astrophysics for Babies
Stars and Planets are Balls. The Sun is a Star
Earth is like a ball, and the sun is like a ball, and the earth orbits the sun. The sun is a star that looks big because it is close. Other stars look tiny because they are far away. Stars are heavy balls of hot gas. Inside stars atoms squeeze together. Smaller atoms squeeze together making bigger atoms and releasing energy in the process. The exploding stars spread bigger atoms across the Universe. The book is colorful and simple reading, but it features the Periodic table, which is not for babies, but ignoring that, this is a simple and fun book for young children.
Quantum Entanglement for Babies
This is the Amazon link for Quantum Entanglement for babies.
My Review for Quantum Entanglement for Babies
Quantum Entanglement Using Balls
We bought this book for our future grandchild who will soon be born. It is a very short board book which takes one minute to read. It is about balls, like most of the “for babies” books. There are two red balls and two blue balls. Hide them in boxes. We know the colors, but Alice and Bob do not. However, in quantum physics the balls have a special bond. We put the tangled balls in two boxes. When the boxes are opened, both balls are blue or both balls red. What’s the point?
I am an adult who knows a little bit about Quantum Entanglement, and I did not understand what they meant. How is a baby going to understand it? It is a nice colorful board book but I wish they’ve taken a different approach.
Newtonian Physics for Babies
This is the Amazon link for Newtonian Physics for Babies.
My Review for Newtonian Physics for Babies
Newtons Laws and a Ball Explained to the Very Young
We bought this book for our future grandchild who will soon be born. It is a very short board book which takes one minute to read. The book is about a ball. A ball feels the force of gravity, and it is pulling it down. When the ball is on the ground the ball still feels the force of gravity but the ground pushes back with an equal force and the ball is at rest. If there is a net force the ball moves.
At the end the book lists the three laws of motion. 1. If an object has zero net force, it does not change its motion. 2. The net force is equal to mass times acceleration. 3. For every force, there is an equal force in the opposite direction. It is very simply expressed, and the illustrations are fun, but I still think this book requires the child to be a bit older for him to understand, maybe 3-4 years old rather than a baby. However, I think the book can evoke an interest in science and physics at an earlier age. Despite it being one of the tougher books in the series, I think it seems to be a pretty good book.
To watch a woman read Astrohysics for Babies. Click on the YouTube video below.
To see the Super Facts click here
Science Books for Babies
I think that one of the most interesting series science books for beginners that I’ve come across is the Baby University series. I bought it for our soon to be born first grandchild Jack, but I couldn’t help but go through them myself. It is a great series for those who hope to put their one-year-old toddlers in a PhD program. But seriously, these books explain science concepts as simply as it is possible to do. The books may still be a little bit tough for babies, but I think 2–3-year-olds might get something out of them. The point of the books is not to make young children understand complex scientific concepts but to introduce the vocabulary and build curiosity.
Below I am presenting five books in the series, General Relativity for Babies, Electromagnetism for Babies, Artificial Intelligence for Babies, Quantum Physics for Babies, and Organic Chemistry for Babies. I am providing my review for the book and a link to my review as well as the book and a photo of the front cover.
General Relativity for Babies
This is the Amazon link for General Relativity for Babies.
My Review for General Relativity for Babies
General Relativity as Simplified as Possible
We bought this board book for our not yet born grandson. This book simplifies the General Theory of Relativity as far as you possibly can. It uses simple language and colorful illustrations to give the reader an idea of what is going on. Different sized masses are different sized balls, space-time curvature is illustrated using a distorted grid, and objects orbiting larger masses, such as a star, are shown as small balls having their paths curved by a warped grid. There are simple explanations for what a black hole is and what gravity waves are.
A baby would not understand this book but maybe someone who is 3-4 years old would. But your expectations need to be realistic. It should also be noted that even if you understand the book, the explanations are too simplistic for you to really understand General Relativity, but the explanations are not so simple that they are wrong. The book will just give you an idea of what is going on. However, I was impressed by the fact that the author and illustrator were able to present such an abstract theory in a way that makes it possible for a child to at least have a clue. I think that the most important aspect of the book is not whether the child understands General Relativity but the interest in science that it may evoke.
Electromagnetism for Babies
This is the Amazon link for Electromagnetism for Babies.
My Review for Electromagnetism for Babies
Electromagnetism Simplified for Young Children
We bought this short and colorfully illustrated board book for our not yet born grandson. I don’t think a baby will understand it but maybe when he is 2-3 years old. The book explains in simple terms and with colorful simple illustrations the basic concepts of charges, and attraction between negative and positive charges, and repulsion between two positive balls/charges and two negative balls. It explains about electrical and magnetic fields, and the fact that charges rotate around magnets. I believe this book can spur a child’s interest in science and engineering.
Artificial Intelligence for babies
This is the Amazon link for Artificial Intelligence for babies.
My Review for Artificial Intelligence for babies
Artificial Intelligence for Small Children
We bought this board book for our not yet born grandson. He will not be able to understand it until he is at least one years old, but that is OK. The book explains the difference between a dog, a live thing, and a computer. It does this in very simple terms that I believe a young child could understand. According to the book, a computer can do some things that are impressive, such as complex calculations, and you can teach it certain skills, but it is not adaptable like a dog. I think that is about what you can make a very young child understand. Naturally, there are no neural networks or AI algorithms in the book. However, I think it sells artificial intelligence short, since artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly adaptable.
Quantum Physics for babies
This is the Amazon link for Quantum Physics for babies.
My Review for Quantum Physics for babies
Quantum Physics for Young Children and Adults who Detested Physics Class
We bought this board book for our not yet born grandson. We may need to wait until he is 2-3 years old before it makes sense to read it to him. In the meantime, it is also a good book for adults without a solid science education. The book talks about colorful balls with energy and presents a simplified version of the Bohr model of the atom. There are blue balls called electrons and red balls called protons in the middle (the nucleus). The electrons travel in circular orbits around the middle. Light can change the energy of electrons causing them to jump between the orbits.
My daughter made the comment that a baby is only going to understand that an electron is a blue ball and a proton is a red ball, which isn’t a correct description of electrons and protons. Protons and electrons don’t have specific colors, not to mention that a simplified Bohr model for the atom is quite different from the more realistic Schrödinger’s model of the atom with quantum waves and probabilistic electron clouds. However, I am still very impressed by how simple the author and the illustrator succeeded in making this abstract topic. It is a good start for budding physicists.
Organic Chemistry for babies
This is the Amazon link for Organic Chemistry for babies.
My Review for Organic Chemistry for babies
Your First Book on Organic Chemistry
We bought this board book for our not yet born grandson. We will read it to him when he is 1-3 years old. Right now, we can read it. This book simplifies Organic as far as you possibly can. It uses simple language and colorful illustrations to give the reader an idea of what organic chemistry is. Basically, atoms are balls of different kinds. Atoms make up everything. Atoms can stick to each other, and they can make different shapes. The balls we call carbon (in black) can stick to small white balls called hydrogen and other balls called oxygen. We call those organic molecules, and they make up plants, food, and medicines. I think this is simple enough for a 1–3-year-old to understand, but not a baby. In my opinion, a better name for this series would have been “for Big Boys or Girls” rather than babies, because young children don’t like being called babies.
To watch a woman read Quantum Physics for Babies. Click on the YouTube video below.
To see the Super Facts click here
Small Microscopic Subatomic and Strings
Esther’s writing prompt: 6th August : Small
Click here or Here to join in
Small Things
Fire ants are small. They average 1/8 inch to 1/4 inch in length, or 3 to 6 millimeters. Mites are very small arachnids that are less than 1 millimeters. They are so small that they are difficult to see with the naked eye unless they are on a white sheet. However, amoebas are typically even smaller than mites. Most amoebas range from 10 to 500 micrometers in diameter. 500 micrometers is the same as half a millimeter. You typically need a microscope to see an amoeba. I should say that there are some large amoebas that are 2 millimeters.
Microscopic Things
If you want to go even smaller, much smaller, we can enter the microscopic world. Bacteria are microscopic, single-celled organisms with sizes typically ranging from 0.5 to 5 micrometers in length and 0.2 to 1 micrometer in width. That means that bacteria are around 100 times smaller than amoebas. Well, if you consider length. If you consider the volume that is a million times smaller. Comparing an amoeba to a bacterium is like comparing a horse to a small cicada. You certainly need a microscope to see bacteria.
If you think bacteria are small, I can tell you that viruses are even smaller. Viruses typically range in size from 20 to 300 nanometers in diameter. 1000 nanometers is 1 micrometer. A small corona virus (SARS-CoV-2) is 50 nanometers, which is 20 times smaller (in diameter) than a bacterium that is 1 micrometer in size and 100 times smaller (in diameter) than a bacterium that is 5 micrometers. Again, a horse to a medium size insect.
Atoms Are Very Small
Atoms are much smaller than viruses. This reddit user calculated that there are roughly 52 million atoms in a normal sized covid virus (100 nanometers). Also keep in mind that there is a lot of space between atoms. The size of a hydrogen atom is 0.1 nanometer or 100 picometer. Comparing a hydrogen atom to a normal sized covid virus is like comparing a flea to a horse. If you consider volume, you could fill a normal sized covid virus with 1 billion hydrogen atoms.
You cannot see an atom using a regular microscope. You must use specialized microscopes that don’t rely on visible light to see atoms, such as scanning tunneling microscopes and electron microscopes. So, in summary, a hydrogen atom is to a normal sized covid virus like a flea is to a horse, and a normal sized covid virus is to a 100 micrometers amoeba (small sized amoeba) like a flea is to a horse.
Below is an illustration of a Helium atom, which is the next element after Hydrogen. A Hydrogen atom has one electron and one proton and possibly one or two neutrons. A stable Helium atom has two electrons and two protons and one or two neutrons.
Subatomic Things
But let’s go smaller, much smaller. A hydrogen atom is gigantic in comparison to subatomic particles. Most of the mass in an atom is concentrated in the nucleus, which consists of protons, neutrons, quarks and gluons, and quark pairs called mesons. The size of an atomic nucleus varies, but it typically ranges from 1.6 femtometers (1.6 x 10⁻¹⁵ meters) for a proton to about 15 femtometers for the heaviest atoms.
I should say this is difficult to estimate so take this with a grain of salt. In any case that makes the hydrogen atom about 100,000 times wider than the nucleus in its middle. If the hydrogen atom was 100-meter giant ball the nucleus in the middle would be just 1 millimeter (half the size of a flea). That is despite the fact that the vast majority (+99.95%) of the mass of the atom is in the nucleus. In this case, we are not comparing a flea to a horse, but a flea to a mountain. A mountain of mostly empty space with a super massive flea at its center. The YouTube video below explains the details.
Strings Are Extremely Small
However, the smallest things there are, might be strings. Strings, in the context of physics, are one-dimensional, extended objects that are thought to be the fundamental building blocks of the universe. These strings vibrate at different frequencies giving rise to elementary subatomic particles. Strings are thought to be about 10^-35 meters, which is 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 times smaller than the atomic nucleus described above. Comparing a string to a nucleus would be like comparing the hydrogen atom to a ball, or a giant star, containing one billion planet earths. I should mention that string theory has not been experimentally confirmed.
That is small, very small, extremely small, as small as it can get.
This post is not a super fact since it features a lot of facts and not all of them confirmed or exact.
To see the Super Facts click here
Quick Easy Introduction to Astrophysics
The goal of this blog is to create a list of what I call super facts. Important facts that are known to be true and yet they are surprising, shocking or disputed among non-experts. In a sense it is myth busting. However, it is not the only type of posts I do. This is a review for a popular book on Astrophysics called “Astrophysics for People in a Hurry” by Neil De Grasse Tyson. It is a New York Times best seller and the #1 best seller in Astronomy & Astrophysics on Amazon. It has almost 37,000 ratings/reviews on Amazon and more 194,000 reviews/ratings on Goodreads.
Below is a list of the four formats in which it comes on Amazon.
- Hardcover – Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company; First Edition (May 2, 2017), ASIN : 0393609391, ISBN-10 : 9780393609394, ISBN-13 : 978-0393609394, 224 pages, item weight : 2.31 pounds, dimensions : 7.3 x 4.8 x 0.9 inches, it costs $6.21 – $13.26 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
- Kindle – Publisher – W. W. Norton & Company (May 2, 2017), ASIN : B01MAWT2MO, 222 pages, it costs $9.00 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
- Audiobook – Publisher : Blackstone Audio Inc (May 2, 2017), ASIN : B06XB2PX7G, it costs $10.20 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
- Audio CD – Publisher : Blackstone Publishing; Unabridged edition (May 2, 2017), ISBN-10 : 1538408015, ISBN-13 : 978-1538408018, it costs $24.95 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
Amazon’s Description of Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
Over a year on the New York Times bestseller list and more than a million copies sold.
The essential universe, from our most celebrated and beloved astrophysicist.
What is the nature of space and time? How do we fit within the universe? How does the universe fit within us? There’s no better guide through these mind-expanding questions than acclaimed astrophysicist and best-selling author Neil deGrasse Tyson.
But today, few of us have time to contemplate the cosmos. So Tyson brings the universe down to Earth succinctly and clearly, with sparkling wit, in tasty chapters consumable anytime and anywhere in your busy day.
While you wait for your morning coffee to brew, for the bus, the train, or a plane to arrive, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry will reveal just what you need to be fluent and ready for the next cosmic headlines: from the Big Bang to black holes, from quarks to quantum mechanics, and from the search for planets to the search for life in the universe.
This is my four-star review for Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
The reason I gave the book four stars instead of five is because I felt that if you have an interest in the topic, you will have heard it all before. However, in retrospect that might not be a good reason to deduct a star. After all, the book seems to be targeting people who do not know much about the subject and thus will not have heard it all before.
Quick and Entertaining Overview of Astrophysics
I’ve read a number of Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s books and I love them. This book is a compressed version of what he has been explaining in other books. If you’ve already read a number of Neil De Grasse books, or perhaps other popular science Astrophysics books such as those by Stephen Hawking, you will not find much new in this book. However, I think it is a brief but good summary of Astrophysics written for a layman. It is 208 pages, each page having about half as much text per page as a typical popular science book. It is an easy and fairly quick read.
He briefly explains the Big Bang, physical laws, spectra, nebulae, the speed of light, very briefly relativity and quantum physics, the cosmic background radiation, galaxies, gravitational lensing, dark matter, dark energy, neutron stars, the composition of the solar system and exoplanets. He covers a lot of ground quickly and he makes it easy to understand without simplifying so much that it becomes misleading. This book is exactly what the title says. However, as I mentioned, if you’ve read a lot on the topic already, especially if it is Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s books, you’ve seen it before. I still think it was very enjoyable though and I still learned something new. He is a very entertaining author.
Super Facts 