Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Inflight Science: A Guide to the World from Your Airplane Window
    Unavailable
    Inflight Science: A Guide to the World from Your Airplane Window
    Unavailable
    Inflight Science: A Guide to the World from Your Airplane Window
    Ebook210 pages6 hours

    Inflight Science: A Guide to the World from Your Airplane Window

    By Brian Clegg

    3/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    The perfect companion to any flight - a guide to the science on view from your window seat. There are few times when science is so immediate as when you're in a plane. Your life is in the hands of the scientists and engineers who enable tons of metal and plastic to hurtle through the sky at hundreds of miles an hour. Inflight Science shows how you stay alive up there - but that's only the beginning.

    Brian Clegg explains the ever changing view, whether it's crop circles or clouds, mountains or river deltas, and describes simple experiments to show how a wing provides lift, or what happens if you try to open a door in midair (don't!). On a plane you'll experience the impact of relativity, the power of natural radiation and the effect of altitude on the boiling point of tea. Among the many things you'll learn is why the sky is blue, the cause of thunderstorms and the impact of volcanic ash in an enjoyable tour of mid-air science. Every moment of your journey is an opportunity to experience science in action: Inflight Science will be your guide.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherIcon Books
    Release dateApr 7, 2011
    ISBN9781848312807
    Unavailable
    Inflight Science: A Guide to the World from Your Airplane Window
    Author

    Brian Clegg

    BRIAN CLEGG is the author of Ten Billion Tomorrows, Final Frontier, Extra Sensory, Gravity, How to Build a Time Machine, Armageddon Science, Before the Big Bang, Upgrade Me, and The God Effect among others. He holds a physics degree from Cambridge and has written regular columns, features, and reviews for numerous magazines. He lives in Wiltshire, England, with his wife and two children.

    Read more from Brian Clegg

    Related to Inflight Science

    Related ebooks

    Travel For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Five Veteran Scientists Tell Us What Most Surprised Them: Fifty years ago, who knew we’d learn to clone genes and find water on Mars?

      Sep 24, 2015

      Turn back the clock to 1965. Science appeared to be marching forward at an unrelenting pace. Biochemists had cracked the genetic code (how DNA translates into proteins), inspiring Life magazine to envision “superbabies with improved minds and bodies.

      7 min read

    • Article

      A Career At The Controls

      Apr 14, 2020

      A Career At The Controls
      3 min read

    • Article

      Eye Opener

      Jul 21, 2021

      Eye Opener
      1 min read

    • Article

      Welcome

      Aug 12, 2021

      Welcome
      1 min read

    • Article

      Matt Sheahan

      May 14, 2020

      Who would have thought that the polite way to greet a friend would be to cross to the other side of the road? Who’d have imagined international airports would be closed and the skies free from contrails? Weeks ago when the global warming debate was r

      2 min read

    • Article

      The QUEST for QUIET, QUICK PLANES

      Nov 1, 2023

      The QUEST for QUIET, QUICK PLANES
      4 min read

    • Article

      Atlantic Myths Busted

      Oct 12, 2023

      Atlantic Myths Busted
      9 min read

    • Article

      Overcoming Pre-flight Frights

      Sep 29, 2023

      UK-BASED AVIATION JOURNALIST AND FORMER EDITOR OF AIRLINER WORLD MAGAZINE “Cabin crew, doors to automatic and cross-check.” For most frequent flyers it's a phrase so ubiquitous it blends into the white noise of pre-departure preparations, part of a r

      3 min read

    • Article

      Working The Angles

      Oct 23, 2019

      Working The Angles
      6 min read

    • Article

      The 300 Days of April

      Jun 19, 2020

      Kreisha Ballantyne is one of the most recognisable aviation writers in Australia. With experience writing for several aviation titles, Kreisha has a broad base of experience, an ability to tap into important general aviation issues and a talent for e

      5 min read

    • Article

      Overcoming Pre-flight Frights

      Nov 3, 2023

      GORDON SMITH UK-BASED AVIATION JOURNALIST AND FORMER EDITOR OF AIRLINER WORLD MAGA ZINE “Cabin crew: doors to automatic and cross-check.” For most frequent flyers it's a phrase so ubiquitous it blends into the white noise of pre-departure preparation

      3 min read

    • Article

      Matt Sheahan

      Jul 14, 2022

      Matt Sheahan
      3 min read

    • Article

      Brain Dump

      Feb 20, 2020

      ■ Silicon works well for microchips as it makes good switches, because it is a semiconductor. It’s not electrically conductive like copper, which we use to make wires that carry electricity. It’s not a non-conductive insulator, like rubber. Insulator

      5 min read

    • Article

      Falling Gently To Earth

      Jul 5, 2019

      Falling Gently To Earth
      2 min read

    • Article

      Ā Stalled Approach

      Oct 14, 2021

      Ā Stalled Approach
      8 min read

    • Article

      Drone Home

      May 1, 2020

      Drone Home
      2 min read

    • Article

      The Coolest Flight Ever

      Jul 30, 2019

      The Coolest Flight Ever
      3 min read

    • Article

      Tom Cunliffe

      Aug 26, 2022

      Tom Cunliffe
      5 min read

    • Article

      Tom Cunliffe

      Aug 26, 2022

      Tom Cunliffe
      5 min read

    • Article

      Q&A

      Dec 1, 2021

      Q&A
      7 min read

    Reviews for Inflight Science

    3/5

    29 ratings12 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      INFLIGHT SCIENCE by Brian Clegg is chock full of facts. Using flight as a launching pad (okay, yes, pun intended), Clegg relays scientific facts about altitude, astronomy, quantum physics, the earth, color...and much much more. Not only does Clegg describe the science behind much of those things (why IS the sky blue?), and real world examples of the science, he also provides experiments for readers to try to illustrate the scientific concepts he's describing.I thought of my brother when I read this book, a science-y (and dare I say it, geeky?) kind of guy even as a kid, he would have loved this book. This would be a great book for any science buffs out there, and for teachers to either use in their classroom or have in a classroom library for kids to read.
    • 2/5
      I should've figured that this book would be rather below my level -- I was an RAF cadet as a teen and was rather interested in the long classes we had on stuff like the priciples of flight. So this book didn't teach me much, being very accessible and basic. If you know very little about flight, it could be quite interesting -- if you were ever a cadet long enough to have flown a Vigilant glider or a Grob Tutor plane, chances are there's nothing new for you!
    • 4/5
      A book meant to accompany you on a plane fight and explain some of the science behind what you're experiencing as you zoom through the skies. It covers most of the stuff you'd expect: the physics of flight, the nature of clouds, why your ears hurt like that, etc., but also works in lots of other scientific topics, from the optics of color to the nuclear processes that make the sun shine. There really wasn't much of anything here that was new to me, and the writing is very clear and simple, rather than trying to be especially entertaining, so I personally didn't get as much out of it as I might have hoped, but if you're interested in learning some scientific basics while munching down on your little packet of peanuts, it's worth a look.
    • 4/5
      Brian Clegg's "Inflight Science" is a breezy collection of scientific anecdotes loosely oriented around what is seen and experienced on an airplane flight. The breadth and depth are just about right for a transcontinental flight: informative enough to be educational, but topic-surfing so quickly that interest doesn't have the opportunity to wane. Much of the science is roughly high school level material, but from time-to-time Clegg dips into Einstein's relativity, forcing one's brain to engage fully.Avid science readers won't find much (anything?) new here so the book isn't recommended for them, but for those who enjoy picking up a pop science magazine, this book will make your flight time pass quickly.(Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy via the Library Thing Early Reviewers program.)
    • 4/5
      An interesting look at the "science" involved in flying. Depending on how much of a science geek you are you may not learn very much new information, but it's a fairly good read all the same. For the most part it's easily understood by the layman, but it does get into some heavier subjects that most of us ignore or don't even think about on a regular basis.
    • 3/5
      Breezy and light, this book takes readers from the departure gate to touching down in an airplane, examining the science that abounds aloft. Everything from angular momentum to x-rays is covered, in short, easy to read sections. None of the science is particularly in-depth or technical, a disappointment for some readers. But what the book lacks in depth, it makes up for in breadth. Clegg's clear style, with an occasional dash of British wit, makes for a very pleasant, if light, read.For me the best science writing tells a story, perhaps examining the history of a topic, or revealing the minds and personalities that make science and technology happen. This books misses that high mark, found in such top-notch works as Rebecca Skloot's "Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks." This book is more a collections of facts united by their relationship to flight. Clegg jumps around from topic to topic, from crop circles and meandering rivers, to cirrus clouds and the physics of lightning. Loosely stitched together, these snippets of science never quite gel into a thoughtful examination of the subject.But in the end, if you are looking for a few cogent facts about flight, perhaps enough to get a conversation going with the attractive man or woman in the aisle seat next to you on a plane, this is the book for you. Look for depth elsewhere, but for a good quick read about flight, start here.
    • 3/5
      Inflight Science is an enjoyable look at geology, applied physics, astronomy, and meteorology as relates to or experienced from an airplane. While none (or at least very little) of the information in the book was new to me — thanks to my high school AP chemistry and AP physics courses and a university-level astronomy course, as well as on-going interest in related topics — I found the way that Clegg links the diverse topics to the experience of airplane flight to be novel and interesting.I don't know if this is a book I would have chosen on my own, but as an Early Reviewer win (or a loan from a friend), it was an entertaining refresher of my science knowledge. Clegg's explanations are easy to understand and build upon each other very well. For example, although special relativity is a tough topic, I thought it was addressed very well, and naturally came from previous explanations Clegg had given.This book will be easier to read if you have some science (especially physics) knowledge — I wouldn't give it to a teenager without a decent vocabulary or ability to use a dictionary, due to science terms (most of which are explained, but not all!) — and can easily translated Br-Eng terms and spelling to Am-Eng. But it's a fun read and using airflight as a link is a nice way to cover diverse topics and provide a good, basic look at the world through science.
    • 4/5
      This is science for the rest of us - anyone with a good knowledge of physics or earth science will have encountered most of this before. However, for those without that background, this is an interesting introduction to science and how we can see manifestations all around us. I found the experiments rather simplistic but the book was well written and one that I would heartily recommend for someone who says that all science is boring.
    • 3/5
      As someone who has spent most of his career in the aerospace industry, and currently flies over 50,000 miles a year, I spend a lot of time looking out of airplane windows. This seemed like the perfect book for a plane flight - so that's where I read it. Maybe I was expecting too much, but overall I found the text more frustrating than illuminating.The aeronautical sciences were glossed over, and a lot of the cool technology that makes a modern airliner work left out.And while I did learn some things about the word outside my aircraft window, I felt it either didn't go far enough, or too easily veered off into discussions of irrelevant examples that you would never probably experience in decades of flying.Early in the book Clegg admits that he doesn't enjoy flying, and that fact, at least to me, underscored the tone of the book. It felt like a popular science book shoe horned into a narrative framework that the author wasn't comfortable, or familiar, with. There is a good science book in here struggling to get out - it just needed a different perspective.
    • 2/5
      I really wanted to like this book. I am a science nerd and I love flying, but ultimately Inflight Science was disappointing. It stays at a very basic and elementary level, it would start to touch on something interesting, but then dart off onto the next topic. The over feel of the book was very scattered and it lacked focus. There is so much that I would love to know about flight, but none of it was in this book.
    • 3/5
      From your arrival at the departure airport, via the security checkpoints and your plane's departure, through to landing in your destination -- Brian Clegg runs you through all the popular science related to a typical flight.While the 'hard science' is somewhat lacking, this is still a worthwhile book that you can't fail to learn one or two things from.Written in an informal and educational manner, Inflight Science feels more like an extended secondary school science lesson than a serious discourse in 'the science of flying'.That said, if you're looking for an easy read, or if you're new to popular science books, then this is a good choice for a long flight: it'll open your eyes and keep you entertained.If you're already well-read in matter of science, this is probably one to miss.
    • 3/5
      Using the framework of an airplane flight, from waiting at the airport terminal to takeoff and cruising to the return to terra firma, Brian Clegg's "Inflight Science" teaches a broad array of flight related engineering and science. He covers the electromagnetic spectrum, airport security systems, gravity, clouds, how an airplane wing works, relativity, and, naturally, he answers the question "why is the sky blue?"The writing is inviting and clear, never getting too bogged down in the details, yet managing to provide a good overview of many topics. I think it may leave technical-minded readers wanting more, but I think the intent of the book was to provide an engaging overview of the many areas of science and engineering that surround us when we fly. I think it succeeds.