Lindbergh's Artificial Heart: More Fascinating True Stories from Einstein's Refrigerator

High school teacher Silverman, who created a Web site for his students that gained widespread popularity, returns with a second volume (after Einstein's Refrigerator) of strange-but-true tales. With humor (sometimes clearly informed by experience:""you should never, ever, mention the name Uranus in a high school classroom!""), he relates how the astronomer Sir John Herschel, in 1835, discovered signs of life on the moon; how Joshua L. Cohen gave away the invention that led to the creation of the battery-powered flashlight and the Eveready Corporation (he then went on to invent the Lionel train); and how, for his own science classes, Silverman makes a pickle to light up like a lightbulb by""electrocuting"" it. (""Don't try this one at home,"" he warns). Science fans and trivia buffs alike will find lots of strange, entertaining anecdotes here in short, bite-size chunks.