Cut in Half: The Hidden World Inside Everyday Objects

by Mike Warren, Jonothan Woodward (Photographer)

A science writer and a photographer explore the complicated inner workings of seeming simple everyday objects.

What exactly is inside a laptop, a golf ball, a vacuum cleaner, or a novelty singing fish toy? The insides of these and dozens of other objects are revealed in this photographic exploration of the stuff all around us, exposed and explained. With the help of a high-pressure waterjet cutter able to slice through four inches of steel plate, designer and fabricator Mike Warren (creator of the popular Cut in Half YouTube channel) cuts into everything from boom boxes to boxing gloves, oil filters to seashells, describing and demystifying the inner workings and materials of each. With gorgeously detailed photography, Cut in Half is a fascinating and accessible popular science look at the extraordinary in the everyday.

Praise for Cut in Half

“If you’ve ever wondered what it looks like inside a hair dryer, or a baseball, or a Magic 8-ball, this book is for you. Mike Warren cuts things in half with a high-pressure waterjet cutter and then has an explanation of what you’re looking at inside. . . . One fun the cover of the book itself is “cut in half” along the center.” —GeekDad

“A book of mesmerizing photographs of objects that have been perfectly cut in half. . . . Accompanying each photograph are explanations from Warren, who has been doing this for years on his YouTube channel, that walk us through the amazing complexity of the many apparently simple objects.” —Fast Company

“Let your device addict explore the fascinating inner workings of common household items with this book from gadget You Tuber Mike Warren.” —Real Simple

Genres: Nonfiction, Technology, Science, Art and Photography, Childrens

160 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2018

Reviews

[Cassandra Doon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book: Cut in Half
Author: Mike Warren
Genre: Non Fiction
Recommend: Yes
Amount of Pages 144
My feelings:


The pages of Cut in Half come alive with vibrant images of everyday objects meticulously sliced in half by a specialized cutting machine. Each object is captured in stunning detail, allowing readers to peer into the intricate inner workings that make them function. The author's successful YouTube channel offers even more insight, as readers can watch "teardown" videos to supplement their understanding. From gadgets and appliances to toys and tools, this book is a fascinating exploration of how things work on a deeper level.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cut in Half has a very nerdy-cool premise: what would everyday objects look like inside, when you cut them in half? Mike Warren has the right (and also nerdy/cool) tool for the job (a cutting machine that uses a high-pressure jet of water/garnet slurry instead of a blade) and is here to find out.

The result is an (mostly) interesting coffee-table book. The objects are beautifully photographed and partnered with short but reasonably detailed text explaining how things work. This book showcases a big range of items - from simple things such as golf balls to complex ones such as computers. Interestingly, some of the simpler objects offer more visually interesting cross-sections - most of the more complex machines typically consist of a bunch of motors, wires and a circuit board. The most beautiful image is of a halved conch shell - showing, once again, nature's might.

Mike Warren also runs a successful YouTube channel (like many recent book deals, this one started with an established social media profile), which should be a worthwhile accompaniment to the book. For those, like me, who finds the cross sections somewhat unsatisfying, you might get a better idea of how stuff works by googling "teardowns" of various machines.

[Arwen · Rating 5 out of 5]

- I received this book from LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

We received this book just last night and already it's been super entertaining. For about half an hour last night the 8 year old looked through it and on every page there was laughter and exclamations of amazement as she said...

"A phone cut it half!"

"A golf ball cut in half!"

"A camera cut in half!"

She did that through the whole book.My husband and I enjoyed it too and I will sit down and read it more in-depth at a later date. A very interesting book, sure to be a conversation starter for any age.

[Dawn Livingston · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book, so fascinating to see the inner workings of the mundane. I never knew there was so much literally in a baseball and that the materials changed when it was a softball instead; cork rubber and wool are the most common materials. Who would have thought?

Interesting conversation starter, coffee table book, fascinating just to page through and see the inside with various bits identified.

Interesting in general but maybe best for a handyman or maybe just a kid that likes to take things apart. Very cool book, buy it.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was expecting this to basically be a bunch of cool pictures, so I was happily surprised by the interesting and informative text that accompanied each item. The introduction about the water cutter that halved each item was also interesting. I liked this a lot. My one complaint: the cover cut-out, while neat, is not great for a library book; after three circs it's already falling apart.

[Federico Lucifredi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rather unique in its content, it reminds me Oskay and Schlaepfer's Open Circuits executed on a larger scale. Good photography and excellent execution (the cuts sliced through minor components with steady precision), perhaps lost an opportunity in the descriptive text: while operation of the device is always described, the opportunity to dive into the detail exposed by the cut is nearly always lost - for example, slicing through electronics in some cases neatly exposed large capacitors, showing their layered construction.

Definitely belongs on a geek's coffee table! Kudos to the production editor for the creative cover, which is itself cut through.

ERRATA: page 70, "large resistors" are actually capacitors.

[Dillon · Rating 1 out of 5]

Some things are good cut in half, but I wish some (most) of the things were taken apart instead so you can see the insides better. I think that would be a lot more interesting to me. A lot of them when they're cut, it doesn't look interesting or beautiful anymore and you can't see anything much about how it works.

[B Zimp · Rating 3 out of 5]

My kids and I loved pouring over the pictures and explanations in a book of things that had been cut in half. Our favorites were the seashells, the camera, the boombox, and the Nerf gun. Fun to see all the inner guts.

[Jeff Siperly · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a fun read! Okay, mostly looking at pictures but you know what I mean.
As a child I had a thing for destroying some of my toys. It was imperative I found out what was in my Etch-A-Sketch and my Stretch Armstrong.
Maybe too many electronic gadgets but still cool, nonetheless

[Ryan Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short and easy

It’s exactly what is promised. I think I got it for $1.99 and that’s the proper price for it. Probably better for something to show your kids, but still cool to see the inside of some of these object.

[Joe J · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great For The Curious Mind

Mike basically takes his power water jet and cuts every day things apart to show the reader what is inside and how things we see or may be curious about are built. Excellent diagrams of what he found when were cut open make the book entertaining for me.

[Kara · Rating 4 out of 5]

One day, as I was cutting on the machine, I got to thinking, what if I put something else under the cutting nozzle? The results are what you see in this book.

[Simon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clever idea of a book and how fun for kids to see the way things work. Even adults can learn something if they are interested to.

[Stephanie R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was okay. I found the description of the water jet cutter with crushed garnets to be more interesting than seeing things cut in half with very little explanation of what you're looking at.

[Chris Seltzer · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think that the book was a bit of letdown for me. The content seems like it would work a lot better in digital form.

It follows in the line of Modernist Cuisine's beautiful photography but lacks the substance surrounding it or the brilliantly clean vivisections.

Here you get the sense that things were cut apart as they lay, not carefully studied/deconstructed beforehand, then separated. I suppose that makes the results more real, but it also makes them less educational.

Alternatively, just the inclusion of engineering diagrams for each item would have helped. That way, we could see the intended design and then how it manifested post-manufacturing process.

The blurbs about the items are largely forgettable. I really wish they had made the book twice as large and included exposition about the purpose of each labeled item's labeled elements.

Another thing that would have been good would be to slice apart several instances of the same type of item so that we could make a comparison. This is done a little in the baseball/golf ball section but could have been done more extensively. There are, after all, many different hair dryers, light bulbs, and padlocks.

At the end of the day, this seems to be an after thought. A print version of a YouTube channel that doesn't consider how the medium of print could be leveraged in a more compelling and different way than video.