Ad – Gifted Item & Affiliate Links
This week’s book of the week is a fabulous non-fiction book that takes 15 Big Ideas and explains them in a really fun and informative way. The Book of Big Science Ideas by Freya Hardy and illustrated by Sara Mulvanney is written in conjunction with Aquila magazine, which always seems to be a well-regarded magazine.
This post is marked as an ad as we were gifted this book by the publisher and the post contains affiliate links. My full disclosure policy can be found here.
So what is it about?
Simply put, this book covers 15 key scientific ideas. It covers ideas of atoms, evolution, electricity and all sorts of things inbetween. But it is much more than a simple explanation. It talks about ideas and how important ideas are.
It starts by explaining how ideas can starts wars or save lives. It talks about how people can believe an idea, even though it is hopelessly wrong!
I like the 10 things you will learn from this book section – it explains how ideas that we see as hugely significant and important now, were quite often overlooked. It talks about how more than one person can have the same idea, as well as the fact that everyone makes mistakes! It reminds children that experimentation is key, and sometimes you can have the right idea, but still come to the wrong conclusions.
How is it organised?
So each of the 15 big ideas are taken one by one and explained to the reader. The big thinkers for each idea are set out – often taking the earliest thinkers on a subject up to the modern-day. For example, the section about atoms includes thinkers such as Democritus and John Dalton all the way to those working on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.
Once all 15 big ideas have been explored, the book has a section about future big ideas – some of which are fascinating (and slightly worrying!). It follows with a section about other thinkers who could be included and includes peoples such as Leonardo Da Vinci as well as Hedy Lamarr, David Attenborough and Stephen Hawking.
Presentation
This book is really well presented and each big idea is covered in short snapshots across double-page spreads. It’s engaging and well thought out and takes some very big concepts and breaks them into clear and concise sections that make it easier to tackle, step by step and in a logical way.
