"It's all one big adventure," she writes, "because you don't know where it will take you next. Czerski's accessible explanations share the wonder of experimentation and the pleasure of figuring things out. 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. Storm in a Teacup is Helen Czerskis lively, entertaining, and richly informed introduction to the world of physics. Czerskis skill is to make sure it never gets too tricky, but focusing on the science of everyday objects - such as how the fact that boiled eggs are solid while raw eggs are liquid inside means. The slosh of a cup of tea grows into a look at earthquakes. Storm in a Teacup is an accessible guide to Physics, a science that gets complicated very quickly when you have to study it at school and beyond. Spinning an egg offers insight into spiral galaxies, and considering bubbles and marine snail snot can reveal how fluids behave. 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. A quick lesson in "ballistic cooking" why popcorn pops and imagining how an elephant uses its trunk segues into understanding how rockets work. In Storm in a Teacup, Helen Czerski links the little things we see every day with the big world we live in. Jim Al-Khalili Our world is full of patterns. Czerskis 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. She begins her discussion with ordinary popcorn. A quite delightful book on the joys, and universality, of physics. 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.
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