''The Way Things Work'' is a 1988 nonfiction book by David Macaulay with technical text by Neil Ardley. It is a whimsical introduction to everyday

machine A machine is a physical system that uses power to apply forces and control movement to perform an action. The term is commonly applied to artificial devices, such as those employing engines or motors, but also to natural biological macromol ...

s and the scientific principles behind their operation, describing machines as simple as

lever A lever is a simple machine consisting of a beam (structure), beam or rigid rod pivoted at a fixed hinge, or '':wikt:fulcrum, fulcrum''. A lever is a rigid body capable of rotating on a point on itself. On the basis of the locations of fulcrum, l ...

s and gears and as complicated as radio telescopes and

automatic transmission An automatic transmission (AT) or automatic gearbox is a multi-speed transmission (mechanics), transmission used in motor vehicles that does not require any input from the driver to change forward gears under normal driving conditions. The 1904 ...

s. Every page consists primarily of one or more large diagrams describing the operation of the relevant machine. These diagrams are informative but playful, in that most show the machines operated, used upon, or represented by woolly mammoths, and are accompanied by anecdotes from a mysterious inventor of the mammoths' (fictive) role in the operation. The book's concept was later developed into two short-lived animated TV shows (the former produced by Millimages and distributed by Schlessinger Media, and the latter produced by Children's Television Workshop and Film Roman), a Dorling Kindersley interactive CD-ROM (including a spin-off pinball game, ''Pinball Science''), and a

board game A board game is a type of tabletop game that involves small objects () that are placed and moved in particular ways on a specially designed patterned game board, potentially including other components, e.g. dice. The earliest known uses of the ...

. A family "ride" involving

animatronics An animatronic is a puppet controlled electronically to move in a fluent way. Animatronics are the modern adaptation of the automaton and are often used for the portrayal of characters in films, video games and in theme park attractions. Anim ...

and a

3-D film 3D films are motion pictures made to give an illusion of Three-dimensional space, three-dimensional solidity, usually with the help of Stereoscopy#3D viewers, special glasses worn by viewers. 3D films were prominently featured in the 1950s in Amer ...

based on the book was one of the original attractions at the

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

Metreon, but closed in 2001.

Revised editions

A revised and updated version, ''The New Way Things Work'', released on October 26, 1998, contains additional text on the workings of computers and digital technology. A number of pages were dropped, among them a two-page demonstration of a mechanical coin-operated parking meter and the original descriptions of computing. The original's computing section included four pages explaining the workings and the distinctions between a calculator and a general-purpose computer, and four pages on binary arithmetic, logical AND and OR gates, and how these are assembled into a half adder and full adder; these were replaced with entirely new art and more detailed descriptions, with a longer story, 'The Last Mammoth', depicting a lonely mammoth invited to visit the 'Digital Domain' by its proprietor Bill, which uses the mammoth's assistance and a humorous pumpkin-and-apple-based mechanical computer to create a video depiction of a community of mammoths. Like the previous version, a CD-ROM version was released. A substantially revised edition, ''The Way Things Work Now'', was published in October 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Dorling Kindersley.

Contents for ''The New Way Things Work''

* Part One — The Mechanics of Movement: '' Introduction'', ''The Inclined Plane'', ''

Lever A lever is a simple machine consisting of a beam (structure), beam or rigid rod pivoted at a fixed hinge, or '':wikt:fulcrum, fulcrum''. A lever is a rigid body capable of rotating on a point on itself. On the basis of the locations of fulcrum, l ...

s'', ''The

Wheel A wheel is a rotating component (typically circular in shape) that is intended to turn on an axle Bearing (mechanical), bearing. The wheel is one of the key components of the wheel and axle which is one of the Simple machine, six simple machin ...

and Axle'', '' Gears and Belts'', '' cams and Cranks'', '' Pulleys'', '' Screws'', '' Rotating Wheels'', '' Springs'', '' Friction'' * Part Two — Harnessing the Elements: ''Introduction'', '' Floating'', '' Flying'', ''Pressure Power'', ''Exploiting Heat'', '' Nuclear Power'' * Part Three — Working with Waves: ''Introduction'', ''

Light Light, visible light, or visible radiation is electromagnetic radiation that can be visual perception, perceived by the human eye. Visible light spans the visible spectrum and is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400– ...

and Images'', ''

Photography Photography is the visual arts, art, application, and practice of creating images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is empl ...

'', '' Printing'', ''

Sound In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the br ...

and

Music Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...

'', ''

Telecommunications Telecommunication, often used in its plural form or abbreviated as telecom, is the transmission of information over a distance using electronic means, typically through cables, radio waves, or other communication technologies. These means of ...

'' * Part Four — Electricity and Automation: ''Introduction'', ''

Electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter possessing an electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by Maxwel ...

'', '' Magnetism'', ''Sensors and Detectors'' * Part Five — The Digital Domain: ''Making Bits'', ''Storing Bits'', ''Processing Bits'', ''Sending Bits'', ''Using Bits'', ''Epilogue'' * ''Eureka!'' — The Invention of Machines With a glossary of technical terms and an index at the back of the book. While the individual sections and subsections are changed in ''The Way Things Work Now'', the structure and Table of Contents remain the same.

Publishing history

* Scholastic Corporation, 1988. . * Houghton Mifflin, 1988. . * Houghton Mifflin, 1998. . * Dorling Kindersley, 2004. . * Dorling Kindersley, 2016. . * Houghton Mifflin, 2016. . * Clarion Books, 2023. .

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Way Things Work, The 1988 children's books Children's non-fiction books Infographics Books about elephants Works about technology Houghton Mifflin books