Storm in a Teacup
The Physics of Everyday Life
-
- €7.99
Publisher Description
'A quite delightful book on the joys, and universality, of physics. Czerski's enthusiasm is infectious because she brings our humdrum everyday world to life, showing us that it is just as fascinating as anything that can be seen by the Hubble Telescope or created at the Large Hadron Collider.' - Jim Al-Khalili
Our world is full of patterns. If you pour milk into your tea and give it a stir, you'll see a swirl, a spiral of two fluids, before the two liquids mix completely. The same pattern is found elsewhere too. Look down on the Earth from space, and you'll find similar swirls in the clouds, made where warm air and cold air waltz.
In Storm in a Teacup, Helen Czerski links the little things we see every day with the big world we live in. Each chapter begins with something small - popcorn, coffee stains and refrigerator magnets - and uses it to explain some of the most important science and technology of our time.
This is physics as the toolbox of science - a toolbox we need in order to make sense of what is around us and arrive at decisions about the future, from medical advances to solving our future energy needs. It is also physics as the toy box of science: physics as fun, as never before.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this delightful pop science title, Czerski, a physicist at University College London, shows that understanding how the universe works requires little more than paying attention to patterns and figuring out increasingly refined ways to explain them. She begins her discussion with ordinary popcorn. A quick lesson in "ballistic cooking" why popcorn pops and imagining how an elephant uses its trunk segues into understanding how rockets work. Spinning an egg offers insight into spiral galaxies, and considering bubbles and marine snail snot can reveal how fluids behave. The slosh of a cup of tea grows into a look at earthquakes. Czerski's writing is playful and witty: London's Tower Bridge is "Narnia for engineers," cyclists zoom around a velodrome "like demented hamsters on a gigantic wheel," and chapter titles such as "Why Don't Ducks Get Cold Feet?" and "Spoons, Spirals, and Sputnik" draw readers into diverse and memorable explorations of such diverse topics as matter phase changes and why dropped toast tends to land buttered side down. Czerski's accessible explanations share the wonder of experimentation and the pleasure of figuring things out. "It's all one big adventure," she writes, "because you don't know where it will take you next."
