Rational recreations, in which the principles of numbers and natural philosophy are clearly and copiously elucidated, by a series of easy, entertaining, interesting experiments. Among which are all those commonly performed with the cards
Rational recreations is a late eighteenth-century English book of home science experiments and card tricks by the physician William Hooper, published in London in 1782-1783 for amateur readers who wanted entertaining demonstrations of number and natural philosophy. Its plates are crisp copperplate engravings of mechanical diagrams, gears, pulleys, levers, water wheels and card layouts, drawn in fine parallel hatching with lettered keys, giving a designer clean technical line art with an 18th-century scientific character.
