Guinness World Records

Packed with spectacular superlatives, shocking stats, fantastic facts and fun figures, Science and Stuff celebrates the simple joy in finding things out. What can cats teach us about the laws of physics? Why was cabbage banned on the International Space Station? (Can you fart in space?) And would a penny dropped from the Empire State Building really kill someone? (Short answer: No!)

But it's not all facts and stats. The feature chapter just for Makers, introduced by our very own mad professor Burnaby Q. Orbax, challenges you to attempt record-breaking science experiments at home, from the fastest Mentos & Soda rocket car to the most slime thrown and caught in a minute!

Join us as we rise from the deepest depths of the ocean, where weird glowing fish hunt in the darkness, to the mountaintop observatories where scientists unravel the secrets of the universe.

About the Author

In 1951, Sir Hugh Beaver, the then managing director of the Guinness Brewery, went on a shooting party and became involved in an argument. Which was the fastest game bird in Europe - the golden plover or the grouse? He realized then that a book supplying the answers to this sort of question might prove popular. He was right!

Sir Hugh's idea became reality when Norris and Ross McWhirter, who had been running a fact-finding agency in London, were commissioned to compile what became The Guinness Book of Records. The first edition was bound on August 27, 1955, and went to the top of the British bestseller lists by Christmas that year.

Since then, Guinness World Records has become a household name and the global leader in world records. No other enterprise collects, confirms, accredits and presents world record data with the same investment in comprehensiveness and authenticity.