Cool Science Tricks (2005) (opens in new tab)

Does it bug anyone else that the word "science" is increasingly widely used to mean "tech demo"? Backyard science, science tricks, science f___ yeah, etc. I guess it's fine if it's for a greater good.

Many of these were common in the "science" books targeting younger audiences when I was growing up.

No doubt if you examine each one of these kinds of tricks there are some that are better than others, but I think collectively these kinds of things sparked curiosity and caused children to start to look at the world differently, question things. It might also be argued that this is the start of the path towards either a pursuit of the sciences or at least science literacy.

I hope that there is something replacing these (or science books for the younger set in general) because I would hate to think generations of kids are missing out on this kind of mental stimulation.

Edit: Kenneth Swezey, as an example, had a number of "science trick" books many years ago; some of them a little more sophisticated and targeting more of a teen audience:

https://archive.org/details/chemistrymagic00swez

https://archive.org/details/afterdinnerscien00swez/

https://archive.org/details/sciencemagic0000swez/

Related I think. Others?

The Book of Experiments (1958) [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32115354 - July 2022 (42 comments)

I like the idea of not putting them in any specific order. Really helps encourage scrolling through when many of the "tricks" don't have super appealing names.

Electromagnet should be on that list. It's the experiment that launched my interest (and won me a prize at the county fair). Safe too, since it can be done with a simple battery.

Or just rewatch Beakman's World.