What Is Motion?

April 1, 2016

Gr 2-4-These first-rate introductions to topics in physics combine informative photos and diagrams with concise explanations and real-world examples. In Motion, the narrative segues from descriptions of Newton's three laws of motion to showing how each law-along with friction, air resistance, and weight-comes into play on a moving automobile. Comprehension questions are embedded into the text, with recaps at each chapter's close, and occasional provocative insights. For example, in Wave, a wave graph is said to be, "like the photo of a friend, in that we are only seeing a wave at a moment in time." Each volume includes a hands-on demonstration-mostly doable, though an attempt in Gravity to reproduce Galileo's dropping balls from ground level isn't likely to produce accurate results. VERDICT High-priority additions to science collections of any size.

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