Ask a Science Teacher is a book by Larry Scheckel. The book contains 250 questions and the answers to those questions. Not all questions can be answered, but this book answering 250 is a good place to start. Honestly, I know a lot of the answers to these questions, but having them phrased by someone else makes it quite effective.

Scheckel writes in a friendly, conversational style. Sometimes the answers go beyond what the questioner asks, but it is interesting to see where it goes. For instance, you might be familiar with the Marianas Trench in the Pacific Ocean. It is the deepest part of the ocean floor at approximately 35,756 ft or 10898.429 m beneath the ocean surface. It talks about how we know about that value and at the same time adds some interesting trivia. For example, did you know that a person that went down to that depth took a watch with him that was on the arm of the submersible, and it was still operating throughout the dive?

Some of the questions are interesting since I never thought to ask them. For example, one of the questions is “Why does the Earth have Gravity?” This leads Scheckel into a tangent that explores Isaac Newton’s formulation of Gravity and some bits and pieces that talk about Einstein’s Field Equations of Gravity. I mean, I know Gravity is just a thing that objects with mass will have. Even two bricks hanging from ropes will attract each other in a manner that is observable. Perhaps when I was a child I asked such questions but that was a while ago.

The book is separated into 11 Chapters. All of the questions are interesting ones, but some of them are just off-kilter to me. Some of them I just being dismissed as stupid out of hand, and that probably isn’t a good thing. When I was a child, I was told that there is no such thing as a stupid question, and I should keep that in mind even when I am looking at a question that discusses whether Telepathy is real or not. My immediate reflexive response is no. Telepathy does not exist. If any of that stuff existed it wouldn’t be on the fringe of science.

In any case, there are occasional illustrations along with the text to show what is being said in a different way. It shows a cross-section of the human throat to show the epiglottis and how it protects your lungs when you eat or drink.

This book is really well done. Along with a lot of simple questions, there are questions that get surprisingly deep. I really enjoyed it and would love to refer back to it again. ( )