The Boy Electrician

by Alfred Powell Morgan

Definitely not just for boys, The Boy Electrician is a classic introduction to electricity for curious minds of any age or gender. Full of easy-to-follow experiments and projects, this fun guidebook offers advice on building and creating your own real-life demonstrations of the principles explained, making this a true scientific adventure. Lessons on magnetism, static electricity, batteries, motors, telegraphy, radio, and much more can be found in this single volume. If you have ever wanted to build your own simple electrical machine or just have a better overall understanding of how electricity works, this book is a must-have! The Boy Electrician has stood the test of time, offering a gateway of understanding that can lead to more sophisticated explorations in electronics and how machines work. This timeless book has inspired generations of engineers, scientists, tinkerers, and technology geeks. Reprinted here is the third edition in its entirety. Alfred P. Morgan, electrical engineer and inventor, attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of more than fifty books and hundreds of articles and holds multiple patents for radio and mechanical devices.

Genres: Engineering

408 pages, Paperback

First published March 26, 2013

Reviews

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you know someone that, given the opportunity will bemoan the loss of a bygone age of science lessons where spotty school boys were encouraged to take their lives in their hands, then this book may be just up their street. It is a reprint of a book originally printed in a time when health and safety weren't ideas demonised in the tabloid press.

It is an introductory text book to the subject of electricity, but it isn't just a dry description of what is known about electricity, it provides guidance on experiments that can be done to demonstrate the points being made.

It starts with simple things like rubbing rods made of certain materials with an appropriate cloth to create a static charge, and then moves on to static electricity generators which wouldn't look out of place in a Hammer House of Horror remake of the Frankenstein canon. The point at which I recognised just how times have changed was when there were instructions for making a tin amalgam for rubbing in to a leather covered rubbing arm. Amalgams are alloys in which one component is mercury. The instructions for use involved heating tin till it was molten and then adding the mercury. The book does advise that this would need to be done in a well ventilated area, and that you would need to avoid inhalation of the vapours, but given mercury is a retentive neuro-toxin which can enter the body either as vapour or absorbed through the skin, I wouldn't like anyone trying that particularly part of the experiment at home.

I haven't finished the book in the conventional sense. I haven't read it from cover to cover, but I do keep on dipping into it and reading little sections with real relish. If, like me you're a science geek who thinks that lessons in science should be fun, and that they should also contain a small measure of risk then this will probably make you smile as much as it did me.

[Bhakta Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was in the sixth grade until high school the books of Alfred Powell Morgan were my very favorites. He made science and electronics incredibly interesting and his books were filled with projects you could build yourself. Great stuff!