Science from day to day
The 1999 Nobel Prize in Physics went to the English Len Fisher. These awards reward real research, published in specialized journals, but when they are very curious research. Fisher investigated the best way to wet a cookie.
The organizers of the IgNobel Prizes say that the investigations that reward, at first, provoke laughter, but then are subjects conducive to reflection. Fisher's research serves to reflect long; wetting a cookie has to do with capillarity, that is, with the tendency of liquids to penetrate through small tubes. House moisture problems, sweating trees, or blood flow in the arteries are examples of the same phenomenon. Its application to a cookie can cause laughter, but it can be important research.
In this book, Fisher wants to explain to what extent everyday has contributed to science. The scientific analysis of the usual objects is very useful. Fisher is not the first to underline and use this path; Michael Faraday is the famous example of the 19th century. In the 20th century he gave his lecture The Chemical History of a Candle.
Following this idea, Fisher describes in the first chapter of the book the investigation of the process of impregnating a cookie, using similar examples later. Use the way to cook an egg to explain heat transmission (as a friend of Fisher said, we know better how the temperature is distributed on Venus than in a soufflé). Use the most suitable tool to deepen lever law. And, starting from everyday life, he analyzes other phenomena of physics. The last is sex physics; from when the man prepares to ejaculate until the sperm enters the egg. Fisher gave a lecture on this topic at a school where he had more audience than any other conference he offered there, as well as having more teachers among the public than students.
Fisher relates each topic to many others who depend on the same physical phenomenon. And that's what makes the book entertain. The ultimate goal is to show the relationship between physics and the real world we have nearby.
Zu idazle
Zientzia aldizkaria
