HIDDEN WORLDS: Pictures of the Invisible

by Seymour Simon ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 12, 1983

Assorted objects and events ""that your eyes just cannot see""--assembled as if such ""hidden worlds,"" very large, very small, or very fast, had something intrinsically in common. The section-topics--""Around You,"" ""Inside the body,"" ""Time,"" ""Earth,"" ""Space""--constitute another kind of meaningless classification. ""Around You,"" in turn, we find: diatoms, snowflakes, whirls of soap; insect parts, bread mold, ""a dye called acetotoluidine."" (And much more.) The magnifications are all different, and presented without scale or comparison; some pictures have been colored by computer, but we aren't old what the various colors indicate. The accompanying information is over-technical for the young pictorial format, over-specfiic for the few words of explanation provided, and generally a catchall of unrelated facts. (""Developed in the 1950s, electron microscopes use beams of charged electrons focused by magnetic fields, instead of light focused by lenses."" Next paragraph: ""The SEM is a special kind of electron microscope."" And the next: ""The one thing that you won't see on this mosquito is a beak."") Add old-fashioned gee-whiz twaddle about ""these weird-looking objects"" (magnified pollen grains) and ""some distant worlds in space"" (that acetotoluidine dye, crystallized), and the whole thing's a muddle.

Pub Date: Oct. 12, 1983

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Morrow

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1983

Categories: NONFICTION