When I was young, I happened upon a book called “The New Way Things Work,” by David Macaulay. It described hundreds of household objects, along with descriptions and illustrations of how they work. (Well, a nuclear power plant, and the atoms within it, aren’t household objects. But I digress.) It was really interesting!
I remember seeing someone here mention that they had read a similar book as a kid, and it helped them immensely in seeing the world from a reductionist viewpoint. I was wondering if anyone else had anything to say on the matter.
I think we had this in the house, but I don’t remember it very well, except some of the part about pullies and levers. This book would be a nice starting point for that rebuilding civilization manual idea from a while back.
I have fond childhood memories of many hours tracing the circuit diagram of the adding circuit : ) God, I was so nerdy. I wanted to know how a computer worked and that book helped me avoid a mysterious answer to a mysterious question. Learning, in detail, how a specific logic circuit works really drove home how much I had yet to learn about the rest of the workings of a computer.
When I was young, I happened upon a book called “The New Way Things Work,” by David Macaulay. It described hundreds of household objects, along with descriptions and illustrations of how they work. (Well, a nuclear power plant, and the atoms within it, aren’t household objects. But I digress.) It was really interesting!
I remember seeing someone here mention that they had read a similar book as a kid, and it helped them immensely in seeing the world from a reductionist viewpoint. I was wondering if anyone else had anything to say on the matter.
I loved that book. I still have moments when I pull some random picture from that book out of my memory to describe how an object works.
EDIT: Apparently the book is on Google.
Today there’s How Stuff Works.
I also loved that book. It probably helped teach me reductionism, but it’s hard to tell given my generally terrible memory for my childhood.
(FWIW, my best guess for my biggest reductionist influence would be learning assembly language and other low-level CS details.)
I think we had this in the house, but I don’t remember it very well, except some of the part about pullies and levers. This book would be a nice starting point for that rebuilding civilization manual idea from a while back.
My favorite Macaulay is “Motel of the Mysteries”. I read it as a kid and it definitely had an influence. ;)
I have fond childhood memories of many hours tracing the circuit diagram of the adding circuit : ) God, I was so nerdy. I wanted to know how a computer worked and that book helped me avoid a mysterious answer to a mysterious question. Learning, in detail, how a specific logic circuit works really drove home how much I had yet to learn about the rest of the workings of a computer.
I was going to get that for me younger brother when I next see him :)