VOL.83/2025.06

Wide and Deep Perspectives on the World

Books Picked by a Science Communicator

2025.02.17

In the middle of a cold winter, when snow falls hard and fast, it’s hard not to build a snowman. Sometimes, you lose track of time and forget that your hands are getting numb. When you look at the finished product, you feel unnecessarily proud that you have made something. And, you give him a scarf and gloves, just in case he gets cold. But here’s a thought. We put clothes on when we are cold because they warm us up. Snowmen like to be cold because they melt away in warmth. So, wouldn’t they hate to be dressed? We dress the snowman for him, but wouldn’t this actually make him disappear faster?
People who aren’t interested in science might already think it sounds hard. They give up before they even start because they think they won’t understand it, even if they read the book. Yet, science is so close to our everyday lives. Sci-bro’s Foolproof Science Book (Tornado Books) is a book that shows just how relevant science is to our daily lives. The book is appealing to all, including those interested in, struggling with, or not interested in science.
If you read Sci-bro’s Foolproof Science Book, you can find the answer to the problem of dressing the snowman from above. Clothes don’t generate heat. The reason we are warm when we are dressed is because our clothes trap the heat that our bodies generate. This means that dressing the snowman doesn’t make him warmer. Rather, because the clothes trap the cold that the snowman gives off, dressing the snowman makes him colder and causes him to melt more slowly than if he were not dressed.
The book’s author, Sci-bro, introduces himself as a “Science storyteller.” As he explains, science is a very easy and fun field to understand if you can relate it to your life. Sci-bro’s Foolproof Science Book helps readers become interested in science by asking interesting questions and breaking them down to make science understandable.

There are so many jobs in the world. Jobs can disappear and be created over time. For example, a creator, a person who makes videos and uploads them to YouTube, is a job that people in the past wouldn’t believe if they heard about it. Similarly, there were jobs in the past that we in the present wouldn’t believe if we heard about them.
In the Joseon Dynasty, people who committed crimes were sometimes punished by beating. It was an unimaginably painful punishment, so people with money would avoid it by paying the punisher to beat them gently, or they would find someone to take the hit for them. People who were poor and didn’t have much money to spare saw this as an opportunity, and a job was born - a job where they would take the punishment for money. They were called, in Western terms, the “whipping boy (‘매품팔이’ in Korean).” So even if it’s something that everyone hates, if there’s a reward, it might be a different story for someone. Not many people like the idea of going to the army. This was also the case in the Joseon Dynasty. So, people with a lot of money would find someone to go to the army for them. It was also an opportunity for someone to make money, so a job was created for them to go to the army instead. It was called, “substitute soldiers (‘대립군’ in Korean).”
The History of Jobs in the Joseon Dynasty (Minumsa Publishing) is a book that introduces the many jobs that existed during the Joseon Dynasty. Some jobs are similar to today’s jobs but in a different form, while others are unique to that era. This book not only introduces the jobs that existed during the Joseon Dynasty, but also explains why they were created. You can say that understanding a job is understanding the era. As you read the book, you will naturally imagine what kind of life people lived and what type of job you would have chosen if you lived in that time.

Written by Kim Jin-Woo (Science communicator, Eunjobz)