Making Trouble
THE FAIRYLAND
OF SCIENCE
MAGIC IS IN THE MIND OF A FIFTH-GRADER NEAR YOU.
By Saul Griffith
“I HAVE PROMISED TO INTRODUCE YOU TO
the fairy-land of science — a somewhat bold
promise, seeing that most of you probably look
upon science as a bundle of dry facts, while fairy-land is all that is beautiful and full of poetry and
imagination. But I thoroughly believe myself, and
hope to prove to you, that science is full of beautiful pictures, of real poetry, and of wonder-working
fairies … and though they themselves will always
remain invisible, yet you will see their wonderful
power at work everywhere around you.”
These are the words of Arabella B. Buckley
from The Fairy-Land of Science, penned in 1891. If
I thought about a modern-day equivalent to this little
book, I suspect it would be about the wondrous
land of invention, and how it promises more reward
and delight than the magical land of special effects.
I’d like to see kids inspired by the fantastic feats
of their big-screen heroes to produce real-world
equivalents, to invent their own magic, through a
deep understanding of the fairyland of science, with
a good application of engineering.
I love magic as much as the next person: I love
the illusions, I love the sleight of hand, I love the
spectacle. To me, however, the real magic is in trying to explain the phenomenology of the trick. You
know you’re watching a great magician when you’re
struggling to explain the physics or even the optics
of what’s going on.
Why not use magic as an entrée into the world of
science, engineering, and invention? The phenomenon is the science, the props the invention, the
execution the engineering. This way of imagining
the world allows kids to envision their own magic,
and then to make it.
38 Make: Volume 13
I recently returned from a tour promoting our
first Howtoons book (see page 178 for our regularly
appearing MAKE Howtoons). My co-author Nick
Dragotta and I visited seven or eight cities in the
United States and talked to groups of 50 to 400
kids at a dozen or so schools. The kids were third-through seventh-graders, and the experience was
delightful and inspiring for a host of reasons.
I’d like to see kids
inspired by the feats
of their big-screen
heroes to produce
real-world equivalents.
Nick and I would do a presentation with the kids
where we would describe what we do in our professional careers. It turns out kids are amazed to
find out that someone can make a living drawing
superheroes, and are inspired to find out that one
can also grow up to be an inventor and build kites
as large as their school auditoriums. (They were,
however, horrified when I said I was in school for 26
years. I don’t think they thought that was possible,
and when faced with more years of school than their
current age, it must have seemed like a nightmare.)
After showing kids how to make projects from
our book, they became extremely excited when we
finished our time with a Q&A. It was actually less
a Q&A than an invitation to imagine: if they could
invent or draw anything, what would they most like
to invent or draw? While I would then discuss how
