Customer Reviews

Tom Swift and His Sonic Book Trap (The New Tom Swift Jr. Adventures #26)

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When I was in late elementary school, I was a devoted reader of the "New Tom Swift Jr. Adventures." My fantasy was to become a great inventor and move my base of operations to a large Pacific island called "Tropica." Once there, I would invent wondrous things that would change the world for the better. My experience was not unique; many current and former engineers were motivated to enter the profession by their reading of Tom Swift adventures.
In this adventure, the United States is under attack by a criminal organization that uses powerful sound waves to send a city into a panic attack. Battling back, Tom and his father are working on a device that will send out sound waves whose phases are the opposite of those of the attack. When the waves interact they will cancel out, leaving only silence. This is one of the episodes of the series that is more scientifically reasonable; the principle of cancellation of waves is well known.
The adventure takes Tom and company all the way to the Australian Outback This adds a little interest because you are introduced to some of the expressions used by Australians. After a series of battles, setbacks and partial successes, Tom is able to defeat the gang and prevent the United States government from having to pay extortion money.
The Tom Swift series is more about generating an interest in science, technology and engineering than it is about staying within the confines of physical reality. Read with that in mind, this and all other books in the series are successes. In this case, the book is a bit more successful because there are no major violations of the laws of physics.