Cold Fusion

"Cold Fusion" is another brilliant entry in annals of scientific knowledge from Dr. Doris Haggis-On-Whey with assistance from her husband, Benny. This volume explains all aspects of cold fusion, including some that even Pons and Fleischmann could have never imagined. "The History of Cold Fusion" is presented as a colorful timeline on pp. 10-11, and is a good starting point for understanding this book, superimposed as it is over a timeline of Eddie Money's career (note the proximity of the release of Money's monster hits "Baby Hold On" and "Two Tickets to Paradise" to Dr. Mizuno's observation of charged particles from palladium deuterides, which he attributed to instrumentation error). Other vital areas of exploration include a handy table explaining why Tim Conway, Helen Hunt, and General Pervez Musharraf will never be good at cold fusion, a poem in epic verse about cold fusion by Lord Byron, the Russian invention of fruit fusion, and a thorough analysis of why birds are bad at building superconductors.For anyone who enjoys satire, humor, or science, the Haggis-On-Whey series can expand your world view in many new and unexpected ways, and for that reason alone I recommend it. Besides, without Dr. Doris and Benny to help me I would still be attempting to confirm a tritium sample with a mass spectrometer, and we wouldn't want that now, would we?

This book is awesome. My engineer husband loved the gift.

We love all the Haggis-On-Whey books. They are as strange and fun as can be. You have to take them with a whole gallon of salt so don't be getting your knickers in a bunch about the reality of the science in these books.If you have an odd sense of humor, this is a great addition to your library. My teens love it and so do I.

I cannot say enough good things about this book, so I will just say: buy it. If you find you don't like it, I am sure you can think of someone who will and give it to them. They will be impressed.

If you're looking for the inspired wackiness which characterized the first book of this series (and was mostly re-captured in the third book) - you will be disappointed. Sure, the non sequiturs are there - but the phrase "too much of a good thing" comes to mind. Perhaps the humor is more apparent to anyone working in a field where much time is spent in a laboratory; for the non-lab-dwellers, this book is only so-so.There are moments when the brilliance of the first and third books shine through, but, for the most part, the laughs are fewer and farther between. Overall, a rather disappointing entry into the increasingly uneven Haggis-On-Whey series.

If you don't know how awesome these books are by now, you are woefully under-informed. If you like absurdity, buy these. If you like confusing children, buy these. BUY THEM ALL.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, but it is definitely something that not all audiences will "get". All of the HOW books are essentially sarcastic/satirical/ironic/parodic/etc. versions of old encyclopedic volumes aimed at children. The central theme of the the widely publicized (at the time) "discovery" of cold fusion in the '90s. If you don't remember that then you probably won't enjoy this volume as much as the other HOW books, but there are still plenty of random themes going on as well.

There were a few good one-liners in this book. Otherwise, it was instantly forgettable.