Customer Reviews

The Science Book: Everything You Need to Know About the World and How It Works (National Geographic)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Another title for this review could be: Calling All Homeschool Students and Parents: Here is Your Science Book!

After homeschooling my son for eight years, I love to discover books like this one from National Geographic. This book is a treasure for homeschooling families that is useful for children of all ages. Yes, all ages. Four-, five-, and six- year olds will love paging through The Science Book, and I can guarantee that their interest will be piqued! One child may be fascinated by space travel; another by the story of dinosaurs. Of course a five-year-old may not understand the fine points of these subjects, but she (or he) will be curious, delighted, and very willing to have Mom or Dad read out loud from this book as she looks at the pictures. Homeschooled high school students will find the sections on Chemistry (Organic and Inorganic) and Physics/Technology to be comprehensive, with enough detail and explanations for a firm grasp of the subject.

The Science Book includes a substantial section on Mathematics, including Classical Mathematics, Analytical Geometry, Calculus, Probability, and Pure and Applied Mathematics. The inclusion of mathematics, the science based on abstract ideas "created by logical thought processes" emphasizes the interdisciplinary approach that is intrinsic to the study of science in the 21st century.

The Science Book makes fascinating reading for anyone, not just students learning at home. In The Science Book, students in school will find the very same concepts they study in science class, but this book offers a clear overview and in a concise, easy-to-understand layout. This book can enhance understanding of the sciences taught in middle and high schools.

If you have a curious mind and want a quick yet full answer for your science questions, then The Science Book should be on your bookshelf. For me, science always has made fascinating reading, and I find this book to be as informative as it is enjoyable.

The Science Book: Everything You Need to Know About the World and How It Works should be entitled, "The Science Book: A Concise Encyclopedia."

This book does not contain EVERYTHING you need to know about the world, nor science, and how it completely works. In fact, the title is profoundly misleading.

However, this receives four stars for the quality of information and images contained in this cost effective edition. This textbook can be thought of as a good all-in-one science encyclopedia.

It's a science book for teens, and an overview for adults. It touches upon the basic facts of the wonderful world of science. It doesn't go into depth on every subject in this 421-page book or else it will be a lot heavier. It doesn't have all the facts you may want to have in this book. It left out a lot of information. It is not a textbook. It could be called Wikipedia Science. It is still a great book, wonderful color pictures, brief but still good facts in this book.

... YOU 1) don't have a 'hard science' background and 2) would like to have a great all-in-one science encyclopedia, you will most likely LOVE this book.

The book contains excellent material, concise yet fairly complete, beautifully illustrated and ... simply fantastic to read and flip through the topics you just feel reading.

The writers were bold and claim that the books contains 'everything you need to know about the world and how it works'. I cannot judge the validity of this statement while I feel it covers all the big points in the hard science world nicely.

Excellent structure; THE UNIVERSE, THE EARTH, BIOLOGIE, CHEMISTRY, PHYSICS AND TECHNOLOGY & MATHEMATICS.

I strongly feel that this book is a masterpiece for readers fulfilling the two points above (incl. myself).

Excellent material content. Concise yet complete. Beautifully illustrated, with extras. No home should be without one.

I went into a local B&N intending to buy another physics book, but after just finishing Brian Green's The Elegant Universe, my brain could use a bit of rest. lol.

I agree with the other commenter who said, this book gives you the facts but plays it safe. The National Geographic' name played a big part in me buying the book. But I did noticed the authors all had PDa. Although they should also have mentioned what schools they came from, but I guess that's nitpicking.

Call me paranoid, but I'm always worried some Creationist from the sales or editing department will manage to influence the authors. On page 20 under the category "The Universe" the last paragraph talks about the Big Bang and Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity and after just saying "Most scientist have accepted the Big Bang model" it ends the section with, "There may be other valid models which are also consistent with observational data." And then abruptly ends. Kinda weird, no? What other valid models are they referring too? Now you got me all curious. :)

The next section goes pretty similar. It talks about the red shift and actually goes into really good detail on how the Redshift is such strong evidence for the Big Bang, but there it goes ending the section with "So far, however, no generally accepted explanation for the redshift has been found." --

Last time I checked wikipedia, the explanation was called "the doppler effect."

So yeah, some parts a are little weird. However, it makes the main points very clear (big thumbs up) but sprinkles in only a dash of confusion. I guess that's the authors sneaky way of getting Critical Thinking back into our heads.

Overall I'm giving this book two thumbs up and five gold stars. The problems I've encountered in the areas I deem most important pass with an A-. Also I wouldn't buy this book for a young highschooler, unless they are REALLY into science. lol. The author does a decent job of making all the facts entertaining, but don't fool yourself... It ain't no Harry Potter.

I suggest this book to a person who really is into this sort of thing. Or maybe use it as a coffee table book. Its easy to flip through, has lots of pictures and quick facts.

It's always fun and irritating to find errors in a science book, especially one as broad in scope and illustrated as this one. One would think that a science book would be reviewed prior to release to at least catch the most obvious errors. This book has many, from repeated conversions of delta-C to delta-F degrees (delta C to F = 9/5 whereas absolute C to F is 9/5 + 32) to showing a photo of a moose and calling it a deer (versus belonging to the deer family) to a misleading color coded strand of DNA (one correct and one misleading) to a misleading text on the explanation of a Watt. The list goes on.

But all in all, it's a great read, look, and refresher. Fix the errors and it can also become a good reference book. I especially enjoyed the electron photo of the DNA strand. Remarkable, as the photo can make a person question ones agnostic tendencies. Science is meant to make people question and ponder. This book does.

The book arrived ahead of schedule, which was nice. It was an interesting read and came in great condition. I am very happy with my purchase.

A few years ago I picked up a copy of Asimov's New Guide to Science (Penguin Press Science) at the Moscow airport and then much later a copy of - A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. These books are great single volumes on Science for the general reader, Asimov with the serious in depth approach and Bryson with his lighter look at science. If you have never had much formal science classes or just want a good review of science subjects these books are good.

Nat Geo has taken a translated version of a small German publisher's Concise scientific encyclopedia and put their name on to this single volume review of science in the tradition of the writers above. . As with the previous books listed above, they start with the macro/cosmic and go towards micro/cellular. This book has a lot of good photos, charts etc. and general explanations of the major themes in science. It makes a great reference to keep handy on the coffee table when watching those Nat Geo science programs for quick look up. Since, it has been years since I had formal science classes at the University, it is also a good just to thumb through to review science concepts.

Beware - This is not a detailed science encyclopedia as is Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia, but a light overview for the general reader.
In these days where almost everybody has a computer and Wikipedia is expanding its in-depth encyclopedic material, it is "rare" to find publishers who try to create concise encyclopedias in print for the general reader.

My kids spend hours paging through this book. It's filled with pictures, and the text is written on a very understandable seventh-grade level. I must admit, I've enjoyed reading it, and learned quite a bit from it too.