Mark Miodownik

Winner of the 2014 Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books Stuff Matters by Mark Miodnownik is a unique and inspiring exploration of human creativity Enthralling A mission to re acquaint us with the wonders of the fabric that sustains our lives Guardian Everything is made of something From the everyday objects in our homes to the most extraordinary new materials that will shape our future Stuff Matters reveals the inner workings of the man made world the miracles of craft design engineering and ingenuity that surround us every day From the tea cup to the jet engine the silicon chip to the paper clip from the ancient technologies of fabrics and ceramic to today s self healing metals and bionic implants this is a book to inspire amazement and delight at mankind s creativity A certain sort of madness may be necessary to pull off what he has attempted here which is a wholesale animation of the inanimate Miodownik achieves precisely what he sets out to The Times Insightful fascinating The futuristic materials will elicit gasps Makes even the most everyday substance seem exciting Sunday Times Wonderful Miodownik writes well enough to make even concrete sparkle Financial Times I stayed up all night reading this book Oliver

BY THE AUTHOR OF THE BESTSELLING PRIZE WINNING STUFF MATTERS Sometimes explosive often delightful occasionally poisonous but always fascinating the secret lives of liquids from one of our best known scientists A series of glasses of transparent liquids is in front of you but which will quench your thirst and which will kill you And why Why does one liquid make us drunk and another power a jumbo jet From the bestselling author of Stuff Matters comes a fascinating tour of these surprising or sinister substances the droplets heartbeats and ocean waves we all encounter every day Structured around a plane journey encountering water wine oil and more Miodownik shows that liquids are agents of death and destruction as well as substances of wonder and fascination His unique brand of scientific storytelling brings them and their mysterious properties alive in a captivating new way A truly delightful read Jim Al Khalili author of Paradox An exhilarating eye opening ride Philip Ball science writer and author of H2O Exciting anarchic and surprising Katy Guest The Guardian A thrilling read from start to finish Tim Radford author of The Consolations of Physics

A delight Dara O Briain A witty smart writer who has a great talent Bill Gates A winning blend of education and anecdote Clive Cookson FT Why are most gases invisible odourless and tasteless Why do some poison us and others make us laugh And why do some power our engines while others make drinks fizzy In It s a Gas Mark Miodownik masterfully reveals an invisible world through his unique brand of scientific storytelling Taking us back to that exhilarating and often dangerous moment when scientists tried to work out exactly what they had discovered Miodownik shows that gases are the formative substances of our modern world each with its own weird and wonderful personality We see how seventeenth century laughing gas parties led to the first use of anaesthetics in surgery how the invention of the air valve in musical instruments gave us bicycles cars and trainers and how gases made us masters of the sea by huge steamships and skies via extremely flammable balloons This delight of a book reveals the immense importance of gases to modern civilisation

A delight Dara O Briain A witty smart writer who has a great talent Bill Gates Why are most gases invisible odourless and tasteless Why do some poison us and others make us laugh And why do some power our engines while others make drinks fizzy In It s a Gas Mark Miodownik masterfully reveals an invisible world through his unique brand of scientific storytelling Taking us back to that exhilarating and often dangerous moment when scientists tried to work out exactly what they had discovered Miodownik shows that gases are the formative substances of our modern world each with its own weird and wonderful personality We see how seventeenth century laughing gas parties led to the first use of anaesthetics in surgery how the invention of the air valve in musical instruments gave us bicycles cars and trainers and how gases made us masters of the sea by huge steamships and skies via extremely flammable balloons This delight of a book reveals the immense importance of gases to modern civilisation

O livro se passa em um voo transatlântico e oferece aos leitores um tour por essas substâncias sem forma, contadas a partir da linguagem de moléculas, gotículas, batimentos cardíacos e ondas do ocean

En este recorrido experto por el mundo de las gotas, los latidos del corazón y las olas del mar, Miodownik da vida a lo cotidiano. Revela por qué los líquidos pueden ascender por un árbol pero bajar por una colina, por que el aceite es pegajoso, como las olas pueden viajar tan lejos y como preparar la taza de te perfecta. Aqui estan las vidas secretas de unas sustancias de las que todos dependemos, pero que rara vez entendemos: desde el agua y el pegamento al cafe o el vino, nos muestra como estos liquidos pueden provocar tanto la muerte y la destruccion como la maravilla y la fascinacion.

Las vidas secretas de unas sustancias de las que todos dependemos.En este recorrido experto por el mundo de las gotas, los latidos del corazón y las olas del mar, Miodownik da vida a lo cotidiano. Revela por que los liquidos pueden ascender por un arbol pero bajar por una colina, por que el aceite es pegajoso, como las olas pueden viajar tan lejos y como preparar la taza de te perfecta. Aqui estan las vidas secretas de unas sustancias de las que todos dependemos, pero que rara vez entendemos: desde el agua y el pegamento al cafe o el vino, nos muestra como estos liquidos pueden provocar tanto la muerte y la destruccion como la maravilla y la fascinacion.

Ganador del Royal Society Winton Prize en la categoría de libros de ciencias en 2014.¿Por qué se puede ver a través del cristal? ¿Qué hace que los elásticos puedanestirarse? ¿Por qué los clips se doblan?Todo esta hecho de algo: desde los objetos cotidianos hasta los materiales que parecen anticipar el futuro. Se trata del milagro de la creacion: la destreza, el diseño, la ingenieria y el ingenio que nos rodean cada dia. Desde la taza de te hasta el avion, desde el chip de silicio a la suela de los zapatos, desde la fabricacion de tejidos hasta los implantes biomecanicos este libro esta pensado para sorprendernos y maravillarnos ante el prodigio de las creaciones materiales humanas.`Cosas (y) materiales¿nos habla de las maravillas ocultas y las sorprendentes propiedades de los materiales que consideramos aburridas,banales y no merecedoras de atencion []Como los mejores chocolateros, Miodownik acierta con la mezcla. The New York Times Book Review