When the British magazine How It Works began appearing a couple of years ago, I cheered. I've read plenty of science magazines, but I always seemed to lag behind the curve -- far behind -- OK, flatlining. How It Works took it upon itself to explain to techno-feebs like me pretty much everything -- diagramming and identifying the inner workings of just about anything from iPads and Harrier jets to dinosaurs and the moons of Saturn. It let you understand LEDs, laptops, and nuclear submarines.
Visually, I can't complain about the 'zine. The photos, computer generated images, and artists' conceptions are vivid, large, and exciting, and quite up to date (such as an amazing image of the Sun, "taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO)" on March 20, 2010, seen in the recent How It Works Book of Space. However . . .
I noticed some odd typos in this 'zine starting from the very first issue. I'm not the one to quibble over a few misspellings, but the typos were often in numerical info that, above all else, ought to be correct. Now the new Book of Space seems to be taking errors and poor grammar to a new level.
The first page with prose, "Journey through the Solar System" (page 8), ends with this line: "In addition, the solar system is home to numerous small solar system bodies*, which include all minor planets," . . . and that's it. Presumably they might have listed comets, meteoroids, and dust -- but there is no "continued" for this page.
There's a two page spread on pp. 10 and 11 devoted to the Sun and its planets. At the top of page ten we're informed that "Saturn is so light that if it could be hypothetically placed in a galactic-sized ocean of water it would float." Lower down the page, on "Map of the Solar System," we're told that "Saturn is so light - thanks to its compositon from the lightest elements - that if it could be hypothetically -" etc. And at the top of page 11, under "5 Top Facts: Solar System," we learn that "Hypothetically speaking, Saturn is so light that if it were placed in a galactic-sized swimming pool --" Well, you know.
There are lots of little "Statistics" areas that look almost like Magic: The Gathering cards. Page 10's "The Statistics -- The Sun" states: "Surface temperature: 5,500 degrees C." All well and good, but on page 12 -- another blue "The Statistics -- The Sun" card: "Average surface temperature: 1-2 million degrees." that was quite a jump in two pages!
Page 18 brings us to the Moon. "The moon does have days that last about 29.5 hours." Page 19 asks "Could We Ever Live There?", answering that colonists would have to get used to many hardships, such as "the relatively long lunar nights (15 hours)."
Whoa, whoa there! Day to night to day is marked by sunlight passing over the surface of an object. The sun's rays do pass across the moon -- in what we call phases, from new to full to new again -- a period that last approximately 29.5 days. We get the word "month" from "moon", in fact.
The above is what jumped out at me after reading only 11 pages out of nearly 170. I'm almost afraid to read further. All I can say is -- guys, you have the best-looking science/technology publication on the planet, but invest in some proof-readers!
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*Ya think?
