At the beginning of the book Uncle Albert sent Gedankin into a thought bubble to learn what everything is made of. In the thought bubble Gedankin met The White Rabbit. The White Rabbit's job is to sort all the 92 kinds of atoms into their places. Also Cheshire Cat starts throwing electrons at them. At the end Gedankin showed Uncle Albert a game of what everything is made of. I liked the book. I liked when Gedankin saved The White Rabbit from an electron. I learned that everything is made of molecules. ( )

(Read as research for a book I'm writing)

This third and final instalment of the Uncle Albert series follows the same formula as before - an adolescent niece chats with her physicist uncle (modeled roughly on Albert Einstein) about the physical rules of the universe. This time, though, the content is even more mysterious, given that it takes place in the quantum world.

The various chapters explain: the structure and constituents of the atom, the properties of electrons, the particle wave duality of photons (and electrons) as shown by diffraction gratings and particle interactions, as well as the uncertainty principle.

Alice In Wonderland is leant on heavily as a source of imaginative inspiration, within the thought bubbles of Uncle Albert, which seemed to be a stretch at times, and unnecessary, since these novels have before had their own kind of imaginative magic.

The explanations too are a little less clear than the other books, and the diagrams could definitely have been improved, especially around the diffraction grating sections (where they were only a few and none of these seemed particularly informative). The balance of the book also felt a little off, with far too much attention given to the particle wave duality, and other areas of the quantum world missing entirely, such as all the other fundamental particles around, and the fundamental forces. I think for relativity, the other two books are about as good as they come, but for the rest of physics, I think that Stannard did a far better job of explaining things as a co-author on the Mr Tompkins book.

Still, there is little out there to compare with these engaging and informative books, and even when Stannard isn't quite hitting the mark, he still brings physics fully to life for the young reader, and hopefully is a source of excitement and inspiration about the wonders of the universe. ( )

BH has a series of these books, and loves them. They are well written and are a great way of introducing children to relativity and quantum physics (I know that sounds a bit like "brain surgery for beginners", but these books do explain difficult concepts in an interesting and non-patronising way).