Skip to main content

Storm in a Teacup: The Physics of Everyday Life - Helen Czerski *****

As 2017 has just started it might seem presumptuous to claim that Storm in a Teacup: The Physics of Everyday Life will be one of the best books of the year, but I will be very surprised if it doesn’t end up high on a number of such lists over the next twelve months. 

 Helen Czerski should be familiar to frequent watchers of science programmes on the BBC as she has hosted a few and has been a panel member on others. She is a lecturer in physics at University College London, specialising in the field of bubbles. 

 The book aims to show the incredible amount of science that surrounds us on a daily basis and how that seemingly mundane science is an expression of far grander things on a terrestrial and cosmic level that follow the same basic principles. What I found excellent about this book was the adeptness with which Czerski moves from the physics of the everyday to a description of how a fundamental force works. An example of this is the section of the book discussing waves where she uses a toaster as a starting point for discussing the transformation of heat into light and how colour is a function of temperature. 

 The book is chock full of interesting scientific explanations for everyday occurrences and ways to use science to overcome some of life’s little difficulties, such as why ketchup often gets stuck in bottles and how to get it to flow in controllable way. She also includes lots of easy and fun small experiments that one can do at home to demonstrate physical properties and why they work the way they do. An example of this is her tip of an easy way to tell a boiled egg from a raw egg. 

 What makes the book stand out is that it is just as fun to read for a person who has read a lot of science literature or has a scientific background as it is for someone with limited experience of popular science. The book is full of interesting facts and examples that easily pull the reader further into well-written explanations of fundamental physics. 

 It is very hard to say anything negative about Storm in a Teacup other than that the description of why a wave always lines up straight when coming into shore is a bit confusing, and possibly wrong, as I tried to diagram her description numerous times and constantly came to the opposite of her description - but I’m being very nitpicky here. 

 I certainly hope that she plans to write more books about physics and science in general because she has a real knack for explaining the complex in very accessible and interesting ways, and she is an excellent writer. A great book with which to start off the new year.
Paperback:   
Kindle:  
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
These articles will always be free - but if you'd like to support Brian Clegg's online work, consider buying a virtual coffee or taking out a membership:
Review by Ian Bald - See all our online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Luna: Moon Rising (SF) - Ian McDonald ****

I'm not the natural audience for this book. Game of Thrones l eaves me cold - and it's hard not to feel the influence of GoT (and a whole lot of Dune )   underneath a veneer of science fiction and the trappings of a South American drug cartel in the cod-medieval family power battles and chivalric details. There are even dragons (of a sort). I'd be really sad if the future did involve this sort of throwback feudalism. However, remarkably, despite this I found Luna: Moon Rising kept me engaged. The fact is that Ian McDonald can put together a good plot with intricate machinations, which is enough to carry the reader through what can be a bewildering collection of characters. The two page scene-setter saying who did what to whom at the start was useful, but I could have done with family trees for the main family as I was constantly forgetting who was who - especially easy as McDonald endows many families with characters with the same first initial (e.g. Ariel and Al...
Post a Comment
Read more

Adventures of a Computational Explorer - Stephen Wolfram ***

Stephen Wolfram, the man behind the scientist's mathematical tool of choice, Mathematica, plus a whole host of other software products, including the uncanny Wolfram Alpha knowledge engine, is undoubtedly a genius of the first order. In this book, we get an uncensored excursion into the mind of genius - which is, without doubt, a fascinating prospect. The book consists of a collection of essays and speeches that Wolfram has produced over the last ten to fifteen years, covering an eclectic range of topics. Like all such collections, the result is something that lacks the coherence of a book with a narrative that runs through it, inevitably introducing a degree of repetition and a mix of interesting and not-so-interesting topics - but there's likely to be something to catch the attention anyone who is into computing or mathematics. One of the most interesting pieces is the opening one, where Wolfram describes being a consultant on the SF movie Arrival. He seems to hav...
Post a Comment
Read more

The AI Paradox - Virginia Dignum ****

This is a really important book in the way that Virginia Dignum highlights various ways we can misunderstand AI and its abilities using a series of paradoxes. However, I need to say up front that I'm giving it four stars for the ideas: unfortunately the writing is not great. It reads more like a government report than anything vaguely readable - it really should have co-authored with a professional writer to make it accessible. Even so, I'm recommending it: like some government reports it's significant enough to make it necessary to wade through the bureaucrat speak. Why paradoxes? Dignum identifies two ways we can think about paradoxes (oddly I wrote about paradoxes recently , but with three definitions): a logical paradox such as 'this statement is false', or a paradoxical truth such as 'less is more' - the second of which seems a better to fit to the use here.  We are then presented with eight paradoxes, each of which gives some insights into aspects of t...
Post a Comment
Read more