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Comment by tenacious_tuna | Hacker News Reader

This reminds me aesthetically of The Way Things Work [1] which was one of my favorite books as a kid. Having a similar wordly reference as an adult has been a goal for a while.

[1] https://www.indigo.ca/en-ca/the-way-things-work-newly-revise...

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A cool recent one for large-scale infrastructure is "Engineering in Plain Sight":

https://practical.engineering/book

I was disappointed in that one unfortunately.

Too much name dropping of random pieces without offering any insights why they are needed. You learn much more just skimming through a wiki article.

Amazing book for sure. David Macaulay has a few other books, four of which were turned into educational animated PBS specials. My mother got us the box set from PBS years ago.

I've been looking around for a book like this that has scientific/engineering topics presented in a bite-sized fashion so a teenager (or even adults) can discover which ones pique their interests and are worth a deeper dive.

Would this book work or is it a bit too simple? Does anyone have another book to recommend?

it's been a couple decades since I've read it, but I'd buy it again as an adult. Like the peer comment says, "Engineering in Plain Sight" purports to be similar and I bought my dad a copy last christmas. Planning to spend some of my professionial development stipend on a copy this year.

The Way Things Work is up to date. I loved it in the mid 90s and just bought a new copy for my kid this year. It has SSDs, OLEDs, Gravity Wave Detection, etc.

For mathematics, there are the Princeton Companion to Mathematics and the Princeton Companion to Applied Mathematics.

I had the same thought. I don't remember if it was exactly this book, but I remember reading a book that explained all kinds of engineering concepts for my kid brain. And I remember the latter part of the book had some computer science content like how compression works.

If it had an abundance of woolly mammoths then it was likely this book. Highly recommended - covers everything from reactors to pin tumbler locks.

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