Skip to main content

Physics Around the Clock - Michael Banks *****

One of the easiest ways to make science accessible is to tie it to everyday life - and this is something Michael Banks does well in his exploration of physical goings on from breakfast to bedtime. 

Each of twelve chapters focuses on an aspect of our non-working/sleeping time. We begin with the morning coffee, take on the physics of breakfast food and so on, travelling through the day to end up in front of the TV show or film. I was impressed by just how much Banks could get from the simple (or, rather, anything but simple) extraction of a cup of coffee from ground coffee beans. One of the very first topics covered here was a fascinating surprise - how static electricity developed during the grinding process (a phenomenon not unlike the lightning produced by volcanoes) causes grounds to clump, and how baristas use a drop of water to overcome this.

There were plenty of such revelations, whether it was the optics of a fishbowl that can make fish disappear or the scientific complexities of cooking (and cutting) the perfect pizza. There were a couple of chapters that were personally not as interesting as the rest - one on plants and another on sport, which probably illustrates that there are bits of 'everyday living' that don't appeal to everyone. but as each will have their own particular interests, this is neither surprising nor a problem.

One chapter, on friends and family, seemed to stretch the definition of physics somewhat - it was mostly maths and sociology - but it was still interesting, so who cares? Overall the combination of the range of different topics in the twelve chapters and the number of fascinating topics that Banks manages to incorporate in what is based on a series of columns in the Institute of Physics magazine Physics World is thoroughly enjoyable.

This isn't the first such book - for example, Helen Czerski's excellent Storm in a Teacup from 2017 was also a 'physics of everyday life' title and inevitably there's a degree of overlap. But Banks has a different tone and introduces plenty of newly explained phenomena, making it an ideal dip into everyday physics.

Hardback:   
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 my online work, consider buying a virtual coffee or taking out a membership:
Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Who Invented the Computer? – Ian Watson

Ian Watson is the author of  The Universal Machine  and featured in a recent  Four Way Interview . Saturday June 23 2012 was the centenary of the birth of Alan Turing, the troubled genius who invented the modern computer. Why though do so few people recognize his name and his great achievements? In 1936 English mathematician Alan Turing, published a paper,  On Computable Numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem . This became the foundation of computing. In it Turing presented a theoretical machine that could solve any problem that could be described by instructions encoded on a paper tape. A Turing Machine could calculate square roots, whilst another might solve Sudoku puzzles. Turing demonstrated you could construct a single  Universal Machine  that could simulate any Turing Machine. One machine solving any problem for which a program could be written – sound familiar? He’d invented the computer. Then,  computers  were peop...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ignorance: How it drives science – Stuart Firestein *****

This is a delightful little book that really gets you thinking. I stress the ‘little’ part not as a negative, but as a good thing. There is nothing worse than fat, bloated popular science books where the author feels they have to get 120,000 words to be taken seriously. This is the sort of book that can be read in a couple of hours – but you will get so much more out of it than one of those tedious doorstops. The premise underlying the book is in once sense extremely simple, yet is fundamental to an understanding of what science is and what scientists do. And it is an understanding that is totally at odds with the typical way science is portrayed both in university lectures and popular science books. As Stuart Firestein points out, what is important is not the facts, but rather the area of ignorance. The interesting part and the fundamental heart of science is not about what we know, but about what we don’t know and where we want to look next. Take this lovely quote: ‘Working ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Star Book – Peter Grego ****

This attractive landscape format book combines an excellent introduction to the stars and basic astronomy with a set of star maps, plus in depth looks at some of the stars featured, with a  bonus section on the solar system. Amazon says it’s a hardback, but in fact it’s a paperback with a rather ingenious cover – you can’t tell from the photo, but the words ‘The Star Book’ are punched through as a series of holes that show the white paper of the next page beneath. Like many astronomy/space books, the cover lacks shelf appeal because it is mostly black, but at least there is some original thought here. Unlike many books in this format which tend to concentrate on the pictures, there is a good deal of excellent text by Peter Grego, so there was no feeling that you were only getting the star maps and star ‘biographies’, something these days much more suited to an iPad or smartphone app. Instead, the opening 30 or so pages give a very good introduction that would be valuable to ...
Post a Comment
Read more