Presents strange-but-true stories about such topics as a headless chicken that lived eighteen months, Albert Einstein's designs for refrigerators, and how a Donald Duck cartoon saved a ship.

Steve Silverman was looking for a way to add some spice to his high school lectures when he realized that weird and bizarre true-life stories would capture his students' attention. In fact, they worked so well that the science teacher then began posting his discoveries to his own Web site, which he dubbed Useless Information. Well-researched and clearly sourced, Silverman's unusual tidbits have gained a wide following.In Einstein's Refrigerator, Silverman collects more than 30 of the most fascinating stories he has gathered—tales of forgotten genius, great blunders, and incredible feats of survival, as well as answers to puzzling questions. Einstein's Refrigerator is a remarkable book with spellbinding stories. Whatever happened to the refrigerator Einstein helped invent? While it never became a commercial success, its underlying concepts became the basis for cooling nuclear breeder reactors.

Using the history and study of temperature as a guide, the author explores where science has taken us and where it is leading us. This is a book about the questions in science that arise from thinking about what temperature means and how it is measured. It is also a book about the people who have worked and are continuing to work on these questions.

One day, a boy named Theo is called into the living room by his parents to meet “the most famous man alive.” Theo is so nervous, he’s not sure he’ll be able to speak. But he finds the great man—Professor Albert Einstein—to be kind and gentle. Soon they are chatting about all sorts of subjects. When Theo and Professor Einstein go out for a sail on Theo’s small boat, the Professor unexpectedly loses his compass overboard. The compass was a cherished gift from Einstein’s father when he himself was a young boy. Fortunately, Theo manages to save the day—along with the compass! The author’s husband was a personal friend of Albert Einstein’s, and though fictional, this story is based on events in Einstein’s life. The lovely watercolors capture the meeting between a young boy and the wild-haired physicist. Their simple conversations provide insight into the mysteries of physics that inspired Einstein’s lifelong quest to understand and explain the forces of nature.

With the same nimble, intelligent, and often humorous prose that made his last book, "What Einstein Didn't Know, " connect with readers of all ages, "Washington Post" columnist Robert Wolke returns to show how everyday science is both marvelous and comprehensible. Online feature.