I've been waiting to get my hands on this one. Theo Gray has the temerity to show you how to do some experiments that must have given the publisher's lawyers fits.

Making salt? Sure. Sugar rockets? Check. Thermite?!? You betcha.

I'm really liking this movement back to giving readers a bit of credit. We're capable of thinking for ourselves and following directions and it's refreshing to be treated like an adult. ( )

I think that everything by Theodore Gray that I have ever read has been fascinating. This book is no exception, but the more interested you are in the science, the slower the reading. I had barely begun when I was required to return it.

My son gave me this book as a Christmas present in 2009, with the expectation that I would make it one of my Picks. The sentiment was amply appreciated, but I did not make it a Pick then because I didn't want to feel responsible for the maimings and deaths that could result from trying many of the "experiments" described. The author does have some warnings and precautions for the feckless yet fearless, but many of the procedures should not be attempted by the inexpert. None of them are real experiments, in that there are no variables to systematically vary, and no lessons to be learned. The spirit is much the same as the "Mythbusters" television series, whose stars wrote blurbs for the book. Some procedures are thankfully limited in their potential for harm by the fact that ordinary citizens can't easily obtain the requisite materials, such as potassium perchlorate, (thirty pounds of) mercury, a glassmaker's furnace, white phosphorus, 30% hydrogen peroxide, or a particle accelerator. Citizens can buy plenty of stuff that can get them into trouble, though, such as concentrated hydrochloric acid, and magnesium and aluminum powder, cylinders of compressed hydrogen and oxygen, regulators, and an H2-O2 torch. Like Gray's "The Elements" book, "Mad Science" has sumtuous photographs, making it even more seductive. A new paperback edition just came out, at about five bucks less than the cloth version that Matt gave me. Caveat emptor. ( )

Theo Gray's Mad Science is a brilliant book filled with fun experiments, some of which can be safely repeated at home by anyone able to follow instructions. Some require a bit more experience, and some of them should only be done by trained chemists in a lab (or a bunker, or in the middle of a large field).

I really liked reading about all the experiments, it's obvious that Theo enjoys doing them.
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