The word on popular science

摘要

Animated, interactive, and evolving at the readers command: this is the popular science book of the near future, according to T. J. Kelleher, the science commissioning editor at Basic Books in New York. "We can expect to see new kinds of books that would have been impossible on paper," Kelleher says. "The straightforward book that is nothing but words is not going any place; people obviously like to read, but there are other ways they can experience information." So a mathematics e-book might incorporate a user interface that lets readers change variables: for example, the density, volume and speed of an asteroid hurtling towards Earth.