Mark Miodownik

I enjoyed the common thread Miodownik used to discuss the scientific significance of various liquids involved in his airplane trip from the UK to San Francisco. Liquids varied from aviation fuel, to saliva to tea. Miodownik included some interesting and fun anecdotal personal stories, too. He does admit to accidentally drooling on the passenger seated next to him, which is one of those, eeeew, yuck, moments.

The audiobook took me a while to get through as I was trying to multitask and kept finding myself having to go back and listen to certain passages again. The author does a nice job of narrating his own material. In retrospect, I wish I had read the ebook version of this title instead. This was more due to my inability to focus on two things at once versus any deficiencies in the audiobook.… (more)

I liked a lot of this book. It's written in an easy-to-understand way and a lot of the information is extremely interesting. The book explores the origins and characteristics of nine human-made materials: steel, paper, concrete, chocolate, aerogel, plastic, glass, carbon, and ceramic. The steel, concrete, and aerogel chapters were the most interesting, in my opinion.

The book did have some slow parts, or at least parts that I didn't find interesting. Also, the author added quite a few personal anecdotes that were sometimes a bit dull.

All in all, it's a good book, but I didn't love it.… (more)

Является ли арахисовое масло жидкостью? Спор на эту тему с сотрудником безопасности аэропорта натолкнул Марка Медовника, лондонского профессора, специализирующегося на материалах, и автора уже переведенного бестселлера «Из чего это сделано?», на мысль о новом сюжете – жидкости и их свойства. А объединяющим фоном послужат все разнообразные текучие вещества, сопровождающие пассажира в полете, от керосина и вина с водой до чернил, чая, жидких мыла и кристаллов и клея. Кстати, ответ на изначальный вопрос – в принципе да, является. Ведь даже пек капает, правда по капле в десятилетие. Потому что некоторые кажущиеся твёрдыми вещества, на самом деле — жидкости очень высокой вязкости.… (more)