This fascinating handbook answers the questions of anyone who has ever wondered about the many strange devices found along the roadside, from utility poles to satellite dishes. Devices are grouped according to their habitats—along highways and roads, atop buildings, near airports, and on utility towers. More than 150 different roadside technologies are covered, and each detailed entry describes what the device does, how it works, and also includes a photograph for easy identification. With helpful sidebars describing related technical issues such as why stoplights are constructed with the red light on top, this handbook for curious readers provides carefully detailed descriptions and the history behind many of the devices that roadside travelers take for granted.
Ed is curious - he wants to see the world and understand how it works. So he travels (a lot) and takes things apart. And, he enjoys putting things together from building robots to writing books.
As a math and physics major, Ed likes numbers. He's traveled to 61 countries on all 7 continents. He has directed 5 museums (including the National Inventors Hall of Fame and founding the National Toy Hall of Fame) and written more than two dozen books.
He holds a Ph.D. in oceanography and has participated in 20 some expeditions, including doing research on sea ice in Antarctica. With his wife, he has sailed across the Pacific Ocean and has done a circumnavigation teaching oceanography for Semester at Sea. Ed is a Fellow Emeritus in The Explorers Club.
An avid outdoors person, Ed runs, bikes, swims, kayaks, and SCUBA dives. Along the way he searches for the unusual gizmo to take apart or at least figure out how it works.
