Gardner, Martin: Smart Science Tricks ©2004 Martin Gardner Published by Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., NY Softcover, perfect-bound, 5.5x8.5", 145 pages ISBN: 1-4027-2220-6

Comments: From the introduction: "About half the tricks in this book appeared as "Physics Trick of the Month" in Physics Teacher, a periodical that has long stressed the educational value of recreational science. Most of these tricks were reprinted as "Gardner's Corner" in the handsome magazine Magic. The other half of the items in the present book appear here for the first time."

Contents:

5 Preface

7 Chapter 1 Water
8 Reverse Jack's Profile
10 Zero Gravity
12 Archimedes Pump
13 The Water Knot
15 A Pebble Curiosity
16 Water Down the String
18 The Beautiful Egg
19 The Mysterious Egg
21 The Magic Glass
22 The Mysterious Siphon
23 A Watermark Code
24 More or Less than Half Full?
25 Suspended Water
27 A Table Tennis Ball Experiment
28 A Two-Colored Flower
29 An Ice-Cube Lifter
30 A Floating Coin

31 Chapter 2 Motion, Inertia, Friction
33 The Twirled Ring
34 A Newspaper Trick
35 The Unbroken Tissue
37 Crazy Bounce
38 Catch the Dice
39 The Suspended Bottle
41 Shuffled Pages
42 Three Drop Tasks
44 Twiddled Bolts
45 The Rising Coin
46 A Yardstick Question
47 Two Rollers and a Yardstick
48 Rotating Cylinders
49 A Novel Way to Find a Selected Card
50 Two Ways to Break a Pencil
52 A Four-Legged Lemon Bug
54 The Walking Hairpin
55 The "Magnetic" Pen
57 The Spool that Rolls Backward
59 A Carnival Swindle
62 The Linking Paper Clips
60 The Mysterious Whimmy Diddle

61 Chapter 3 Air
63 The Jumping Pencil
65 A Card Drop Challenge
67 Shoot with a Finger: playing card
68 The Soda Straw "Betcha"
69 The Hopping Ping-Pong Ball
70 Balls that Change Places
72 Balloons that Don't Burst
74 Perpetual Motion
76 Whirling Crackers and Pinwheels
78 Nested Glasses or Cups

79 Chapter 4 Light and Mirrors
80 An Apparition
81 Mirror Levitation
85 How Far Apart?
86 Mysterious Circles
87 The Bronx Cheer Effect
88 The Vanishing Penny
89 Make a Kaleidoscope
90 Two Ways to See Your Thumbprint

91 Chapter 5 Optical and Sensory Illusions
92 The Rotating Face
94 Two Shades of Gray?
95 Match Penetration
96 The Tabletops Illusion
97 The Amazing Gender Indicator
99 The Amazing Floating Vase
100 The Flexible Ovals
102 A Spooky Rotation
103 The Vanishing Smudge
104 3-D Optical Illusion
105 Funny Pencils
106 Ghostly Circles

107 Chapter 6 Mathematics, Sound, Physiology
108 Broken Symmetry
110 Three Switches Puzzle
111 The Two Squares
112 Fun with a Moebius Strip
114 Turning a Triangle Upside Down
115 Knot a Pentagram
116 Paper Cup Telephone
118 Paper Cup Squawker
119 The Vibrating Card
120 A Paper Popper
122 Stop Your Pulse!
123 Find the Penny
124 It's Not Easy

125 Chapter 7 Electricity, Magnetism, Gravity
126 Which Is Which?
127 The Suspended Pencil
129 Knock Off the Match
130 A Crawling Paper Clip
132 Retrieve the Paper Clip
133 The Paper Clip Chain
134 The Ball that Rolls Uphill
136 Moving an Object with Your Mind
137 A Peculiar Balance
138 The Rising Hourglass
140 A Balancing Feat

141 Index
144 About the Author