Skip to main content

Atoms Under the Floorboards - Chris Woodford ****

I am very fond of the 'take something everyday and use it to explore science' genre - I did exactly that with my book The Universe Inside You, and I'm delighted to say that in Atoms Under the Floorboards - the surprising science hidden in your home, Chris Woodford takes the same kind of approach, yet come up with a totally different and highly engaging book.

The introduction was a little worrying, as it tries a bit too hard to be friendly in a way that feels at times like a kid's book ('surprising scientific explanations behind all kinds of everyday things, from gurgling drains and squeaky floorboards to rubbery custard and shiny shoes') and at others like the over-enthusiastic introduction to the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Like that remarkable tome, it settles down after a bit, although the text throughout has a kind of breathless enthusiasm that feels like it ought to be read aloud by the actor in the Cillit Bang commercial. (If you aren't familiar with the oeuvre, try this example.)

Mostly the result is phenomenal. I love the way that Woodford thinks about things we don't normally consider, like why houses don't fall down, and goes off on a riff that compares the forces from the weight of an apple (conveniently about 1 newton), through the bite of an alligator to the Space Shuttle blast-off. He manages to make very ordinary, basic stuff like simple machines (levers, wedges, wheels and the like) and turns them into things that we look at differently and understand in more depth while still genuinely enjoying what's being covered.

The only part I'd say where things get a bit sticky are the sections where he's covering material science, which frankly got just the teeniest bit dull, although even here, thinking about, for instance, the nature of glue was quite an eye-opener. If I'm going to be picky - and you have to, really, in the communication of science - the mega-breezy approach does lead to one or two pretty well incorrect statements. Einstein came up with a baffling new theory called relativity - no he didn't (that was Galileo). Or Rutherford split the atom in his gold foil experiment - no he didn't.

Even so, there is plenty to enjoy and plenty of 'I didn't know that' moments, whether you are reading about the science of slipping or the mechanism of an LED lamp. We end up with the topic of clothing, from how different materials keep you warm and/or dry (though again materials science is the least interesting aspect of the content), why jeans wear out at the knees (contrasted with a pulley), and the science of shoes, which is fine, but just stops - I'd have liked a bit of a wind-down at the end.

One final plus point - in the 'Further Reading' in the back, rather than showing off, as some authors do, by listing eminent but unreadable tomes, Woodford lists some excellent suggestions, including several that have received five stars here.

 Altogether a fun, light hearted science book that you could give to a teenager, or the sort of person who doesn't really read popular science but would like to find out a bit more about the scientific world around them - and I think they'll have a good time.
Hardback:  

Kindle:  
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
Review by Brian Clegg
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Antigravity Enigma - Andrew May ****

Antigravity - the ability to overcome the pull of gravity - has been a fantasy for thousands of years and subject to more scientific (if impractical) fictional representation since H. G. Wells came up with cavorite in The First Men in the Moon . But is it plausible scientifically?  Andrew May does a good job of pulling together three ways of looking at our love affair with antigravity (and the related concept of cancelling inertia) - in science fiction, in physics and in pseudoscience and crankery. As May points out, science fiction is an important starting point as the concept was deployed there well before we had a good enough understanding of gravity to make any sensible scientific stabs at the idea (even though, for instance, Michael Faraday did unsuccessfully experiment with a possible interaction between gravity and electromagnetism). We then get onto the science itself, noting the potential impact on any ideas of antigravity that come from the move from a Newtonian view of a...
Post a Comment
Read more

The World as We Know It - Peter Dear ***

History professor Peter Dear gives us a detailed and reasoned coverage of the development of science as a concept from its origins as natural philosophy, covering the years from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. inclusive If that sounds a little dry, frankly, it is. But if you don't mind a very academic approach, it is certainly interesting. Obviously a major theme running through is the move from largely gentleman natural philosophers (with both implications of that word 'gentleman') to professional academic scientists. What started with clubs for relatively well off men with an interest, when universities did not stray far beyond what was included in mathematics (astronomy, for instance), would become a very different beast. The main scientific subjects that Dear covers are physics and biology - we get, for instance, a lot on the gradual move away from a purely mechanical views of physics - the reason Newton's 'action at a distance' gravity caused such ...
Post a Comment
Read more

It's On You - Nick Chater and George Loewenstein *****

Going on the cover you might think this was a political polemic - and admittedly there's an element of that - but the reason it's so good is quite different. It shows how behavioural economics and social psychology have led us astray by putting the focus way too much on individuals. A particular target is the concept of nudges which (as described in Brainjacking ) have been hugely over-rated. But overall the key problem ties to another psychological concept: framing. Huge kudos to both Nick Chater and George Loewenstein - a behavioural scientist and an economics and psychology professor - for having the guts to take on the flaws in their own earlier work and that of colleagues, because they make clear just how limited and potentially dangerous is the belief that individuals changing their behaviour can solve large-scale problems. The main thesis of the book is that there are two ways to approach the major problems we face - an 'i-frame' where we focus on the individual ...
Post a Comment
Read more