Have you ever looked at a sink and wondered where all that water comes from or where it goes? How do they get rid of the waste in it? What is Horsepower? How do they take fossil fuel and make it into something a car can use? These questions and more haunt my life. I was blessed as a child with something called Curiosity; I wanted to know everything there was to know. Now I know that this is impossible to achieve, so I have to be satisfied with just knowing a few things. However, these are important things to know. Why wouldn’t you want to know how your phone knows its position in space? Plumbing and the technologies that support it may not be glamorous, but they are essential for a comfortable life. Practically anything you may have ever looked at could be explored in this book. From municipal power and water stations to batteries.

The book contains little pictures and small amounts of text on everything you can think of being covered. Even something as common as the wheel is explored. With the idea of friction and forces, it is easy to understand.

Now, the book isn’t completely focused on only technology. For sure, your laptop or smartphone is a marvelous device, but it isn’t the only thing that is covered in this book. Bicycles, how do they stand? Fluoridation of drinking water, why is it done? What is the difference between a two-stroke and a four-stroke engine? How does the gasoline in my gas tank make my car move? What systems does that require? What is Radar used for? All this and more is answered.

Along the way, we find the ingenuity of humanity and how solutions were discovered. The sheer amount of engineering that goes into making a train safe is just mind-boggling to me. For example, airplanes fly at altitudes of 30000 feet. That is higher than Mount Everest. For that to be feasible, a source of air must be pumped in from the engines, or else everyone on board would suffocate. Along the way, we are treated to other tidbits of information. For example, could you imagine being stuck in an airplane for 17 hours? That would be terrible, but if you schedule a flight from New York to Singapore, you could take part in that apparently.

Anyway, this book is really good for a person who is curious as to how everything works. Like I mentioned, the illustrations are colorful and informative. The text enhances the experience and goes into little segues. The book is organized in a manner that I don’t understand. It goes like this; Power, Transportation, Materials and Construction, the Home, Sound and Vision, Computer, Communications, Farming and Food, and Medical technology. ( )