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    Liquid Rules: The Delightful and Dangerous Substances That Flow Through Our Lives
    Liquid Rules: The Delightful and Dangerous Substances That Flow Through Our Lives
    Liquid Rules: The Delightful and Dangerous Substances That Flow Through Our Lives
    Audiobook7 hours

    Liquid Rules: The Delightful and Dangerous Substances That Flow Through Our Lives

    Written by Mark Miodownik

    Narrated by Michael Page

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Sometimes explosive, often delicious, occasionally poisonous, but always interesting: the New York Times best-selling author of Stuff Matters show us the secret lives of liquids: the shadow counterpart of our solid "stuff." We all know that without water we couldn't survive, and that sometimes a cup of coffee or a glass of wine feels just as vital. But do we really understand how much we rely on liquids, or the destructive power they hold? Set over the course of a flight from London to San Francisco, Liquid Rules offers readers a fascinating tour of these formless substances, told through the language of molecules, droplets, heartbeats, and ocean waves. Throughout the trip, we encounter fluids within the plane-from a seemingly ordinary cup of tea to a liquid crystal display screen-and without, in the volcanoes of Iceland, the frozen expanse of Greenland, and the marvelous California coastline. We come to see liquids as substances of wonder and fascination, and to understand their potential for death and destruction. Just as in Stuff Matters, Mark Miodownik's unique brand of scientific storytelling brings liquids and their mysterious properties to life in a captivating new way.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateFeb 19, 2019
    ISBN9781980002444
    Author

    Mark Miodownik

    Mark Miodownik is professor of materials and society at University College London, where he is also director of the Institute of Making. He is the author of Stuff Matters, a New York Times bestseller which won the National Academy of Sciences Communication Award for Books and the Royal Society Winton Prize, and Liquid Rules, a finalist for the Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize. Mark is a frequent guest on podcasts and NPR, hosts regular shows on the BBC, and was chosen by the Times as one of the one hundred most influential scientists in the UK.

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    Reviews for Liquid Rules

    4/5

    148 ratings15 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Like Stuff Matters, Miodownik explains the scientific principles behind the every day systems we take for granted. It is beautifully written and performed in this audiobook.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      What an entertaining book. Well written, humorous, intelligent! Really loved how the author linked his flight to San Francisco to the liquids he was writing about. It was a great read!

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Entertaining and informative. Such materials as: kerosene, saliva, popular beverages, tar, LED and even the earth's molten core are explained in detail by someone who grasps the molecular structure of such liquids. This is by no means dry and dull. On the contrary, a wealth of information about raw materials and even their future is explained.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      It's shines a Ligth and understanding of how extremely vast and deep the chemistry world effects all of us. It's a must knowl8 for modern man. How can we live in a world without knowing what it is about

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Informative, entertaining, funny. It was a trifecta of awesomeness. Perfect!
    • 4/5
      I was very intrigued by the description of this book. All the fluids a science writer encounters on his transatlantic flight. The narrator was fantastic and the writing was easy to understand, amusing & fun.
    • 5/5
      Good fun. Science reveals that the seemingly mundane is in fact extraordinary.
    • 5/5
      Delightful and intelligent. The casual British writing style makes it feel very comfortable while being educational. Wonderfully narrated as well.
    • 5/5
      A delightfully accessible book about physical science that aims to teach you something even if this is not your usual jam. Through the connecting theme of a transatlantic flight, the author reviews how different types of liquids behave, how they help shape our world and enable our lives. This would be a suitable title for a high school level science course, even including enough bodily function humor to keep students entertained.
    • 5/5
      Science and fun!
    • 2/5
      Trivia about liquids forced into a strange format of a fake story about the author flying in a passanger plane. The story format is meant to bring humour into this but is at best tiresome.
    • 4/5
      The amount of stuff we consume these days is staggering, but there are some things that we use day in day out that barely get our attention, the water that comes out of the tap that goes into the kettle to make your coffee. The liquid soap that you use to wash your hands, the ink that stays in the pen until you scribble on a notepad, the glass of something cold that helps you relax at the end of a busy week. All of these are liquids and they all lubricate our lives in one way or another.

      But, if someone was to place three glasses full of clear liquids in front of you, which could you drink that is essential to life, which would power an aircraft and which would kill you if you knocked it over?

      Mark Miodownik is best placed to explain all of these things being a materials engineer and Professor of Materials and Society at UCL and in this highly entertaining journey from London to San Francisco on a plane he describes and enlightens us about all the liquids that we use in the modern world. Beginning as he passes through security, and why we can't take more than 100ml of fluids on board now, on to the pre-dinner drinks, the oceans that he is flying over and what liquids hold the plane he is on together.

      The film he watches after diner allows him to explain liquid crystals and the way that most modern TV's work before he nods off and wakes up dribbling on the passenger alongside him. From a discussion on body fluids, he moves swiftly onto the delights of coffee and tea and why they don't taste quite the same over the Atlantic. A wash and brush up and then onto the history of inks, musings about clouds and liquids that sometimes think that they are solids, liquids that can flow uphill and new modern technologies like self-healing roads.

      I thought that was a great companion volume to Stuff Matters and another very well written book by Miodownik. He has used a fair amount of artistic license to ensure that the narrative flows and to give him plenty of subjects to discuss as he travels from the UK to the United States. I do like the way that he talks about science in an engaging manner and the whole book is stuffed full of facts and interesting anecdotes, but there is only so much you can do from the viewpoint of an airline seat and he does veer a little off course occasionally. Well worth reading. 4.5 stars
    • 4/5
      An engaging discussion of liquid organic and inorganic compounds in a well-researched format by a materials scientist. The author writes concise and easily-grasped overviews. Although this is a 'popular-science' approach to the topic, it was well-done without perverting the facts to suit a non-science audience.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book on audio! It's funny, intelligent, insightful, intriguing. Tied together by our narrator's cross continental airplane ride, he takes us into the chemistry behind all sorts of liquids: coffee and tea, oceans, ink and pens, soap, tar (yes, it's a liquid!), glue and sticky pads, clouds, and much, much more. I was amused and I learned so much. Can't wait to find another of his books and download it. Recommended.
    • 5/5
      Miodownik uses the amusing conceit of a long London-to-San Francisco airline flight as an avenue to explore a dozen types of liquids (defined as anything “that flows and assumes the shape of its container”) that he encounters on the flight, including: explosives; alcohol; water; adhesives; paints and liquid crystals; bodily fluids; tea and coffee; cleaning agents; coolants; inks; clouds; and our molten planet.He’s very fun, a really good-natured guide (and often outright funny) who recounts the histories of materials and lightly describes the science behind their uses and harms, and he manages to find jumping-off points that segue into even more topics. The first chapter, on crude oil, fascinated me the most, and I also learned a lot about waves and adhesives and tea and… honestly, every chapter offered new delights about these very familiar materials.(Review based on an advance reading copy provided by the publisher.)