Storm in a Teacup: The Physics of Everyday Life

Every chapter of this book begins with an utterly familiar object ? corn popping in a pan, a coffee stain, a glass of lemonade. Each object is the starting point for a journey into a different aspect of the structure of the world: the gas laws, scale, time, waves and gravity. Helen Czerski will show you how popcorn emerges from the same matrix of physical laws that produces storms and cyclones, and how the bubbles in a cup of tea are produced by the very system that circulates energy around our planet's atmosphere.

By linking the small things to the big things, The Storm in a Teacup will alter the way readers see the world. It is also a manifesto for a new sort of science writing: rather than simply handing down knowledge, Helen wants readers to come away from the book and feel empowered to make their own observations: Once you've found a single loose thread, you can pull it to unravel a vast tapestry?

Most importantly, it's enormous fun.

This is a book about the underlying nature of the world for an audience of readers beyond popular science, by a writer who is becoming a star in her field.