Summary

What makes ice cubes cloudy? How do shark attacks make airplanes safer? Can a person traveling in a car at the speed of sound still hear the radio? Moreover, would they want to...? Do you often find yourself pondering life's little conundrums? Have you ever wondered why the ocean is blue? Or why birds don't get electrocuted when perching on high-voltage power lines? Robert L. Wolke, professor emeritus of chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh and acclaimed author ofWhat Einstein Didn't Know, understands the need to...well, understand. Now he provides more amusing explanations of such everyday phenomena as gravity (If you're in a falling elevator, will jumping at the last instant save your life?) and acoustics (Why does a whip make such a loud cracking noise?), along with amazing facts, belly-up-to-the-bar bets, and mind-blowing reality bites all with his trademark wit and wisdom. If you shoot a bullet into the air, can it kill somebody when it comes down? You can find out about all this and more in an astonishing compendium of the proverbial mind-boggling mysteries of the physical world we inhabit. Arranged in a question-and-answer format and grouped by subject for browsing ease, WHAT EINSTEIN TOLD HIS BARBER is for anyone who ever pondered such things as why colors fade in sunlight, what happens to the rubber from worn-out tires, what makes red-hot objects glow red, and other scientific curiosities. Perfect for fans of Newton's Apple, Jeopardy!, and The Discovery Channel, WHAT EINSTEIN TOLD HIS BARBER also includes a glossary of important scientific buzz words and a comprehensive index. -->

Author Biography

Robert L. Wolke is professor emeritus of chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh and researcher in both chemistry and physics. As an educator and lecturer, he enjoys a national reputation for his ability to make science understandable and enjoyable. He is the author of What Einstein Didn't Know: Scientific Answers to Everyday Questions; Impact: Science on Society; and Chemistry Explained, as well as dozens of scientific research papers. His bi-weekly column, "Food 101," in which he answers scientific questions about food, appears in The Washington Post. He lives in Pittsburgh.

Introduction	p. xv
Movin' and Shakin'	p. 1
Why do we drive on the right?
Why are cloverleaf intersections so complex?
Can Earth's orbit be changed if a billion people jump at the same time?
Can jumping up at the last instant save you in a falling elevator?
Where does the rubber go when a tire wears out?
Can a bullet fired into the air come down and kill somebody?
Why does the Lone Ranger use silver bullets?
What really keeps an airplane up?
Are astronauts weightless?
If you drive your car faster than the speed of sound, can you hear the radio?
Looky Here!	p. 33
What makes Day-Glo colors so bright?
Why is snow white?
Why are there two sets of primary colors?
How do fluorescent and halogen lamps work?
Why do mirrors seem to reverse left and right, but not top and bottom?
Why do stagecoach wheels appear to turn backward?
Why do wet things look darker?
Why is glass transparent?
Why do WintOGreen Life Savers make sparks?
Hot Stuff	p. 77
Is 100 degrees twice as hot as 50 degrees?
What is temperature, anyway?
How cold can it get?
Why is the bathroom floor so cold on your bare feet?
How hot can it get?
How does a flame know which way is up?
Why is a candle flame tapered at the top?
Could we counteract global warming by turning on all our air conditioners?
What's so dangerous about high voltage?
Why doesn't it rain dead sparrows?
The Earth Beneath Our Feet	p. 103
Why does Earth pull everything toward its exact center?
How does hot air defy gravity by rising?
If hot air rises, why is it colder in the mountains?
Does it ever get too cold to snow?
If Earth is spinning so fast, why don't we fly off?
Can the astronauts see Earth turning beneath them?
Would a polar bear weigh less at the equator?
Do toilets flush counterclock-wise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern hemisphere?
Can you stand an egg on end during the vernal equinox?
Why is nuclear energy unique on Earth?
How does radiocarbon dating work?
Heavens Above!	p. 142
How do odors find your nose?
Can you operate a vacuum cleaner in a vacuum?
Why does a lion tamer's whip make such a loud "crack"?
What is the sound barrier made of?
Why does thunder sound the way it does?
Why is the moon so much bigger when it's near the horizon?
Why do the stars twinkle?
How does the moon keep one side always facing Earth?
How do the oceans' tides work?
Does the moon ever turn blue?
Why is it cold in space--or is it?
All Wet	p. 178
What color is water?
Why are the oceans blue?
And salty?
Precisely where is sea level?
Why does spilled coffee dry to a ring?
Why does your shower curtain cling to you?
Where do your socks go when they disappear in the laundry?
What's the most expensive ingredient in laundry detergents?
(Advertising.) Is glass a liquid?
What makes ice cubes cloudy?
If the humidity got to be 100 percent, would we drown?
How can you clear your fogged-up windshield?
Can a farmer smell rain?
Stuff and Things	p. 215
Are airplanes safe?
How does an eraser erase?
Why does rubber stretch?
Why are cars noisy?
Why do clothes wrinkle?
How does a skateboard work?
What happens when you shake a bottle of soda?
Can you get electricity out of a lemon?
Are smoke alarms radioactive?
Can fertilizer explode?
How do sailors keep clean?
If you stopped dusting, how long would it take to be buried in dust?
Can you unburn a match?
Some Techspeak Buzzwords	p. 253
Index	p. 257
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Excerpts

Movin' and Shakin'

Everything is moving.

You may be sitting quietly in your armchair, but you are far from motionless. I don't mean merely that your heart is beating, your blood is coursing through your veins and you are panting at the prospect of learning so many fascinating things from this book. In short, I don't mean simply that you are physically and mentally alive.

I mean that while you are sitting there so peacefully, Earth beneath your feet is spinning you around at about 1,000 miles per hour (1,600 kilometers per hour). (The exact speed depends on where you live; see p. 119). Mother Earth is simultaneously hauling you around the sun at 66,600 miles per hour (107,000 kilometers per hour). Not to mention the fact that the solar system and all the stars and galaxies in the universe are racing madly away from one another in all directions at incredible speeds.

Okay, you knew all that. Except maybe for the exact speeds. But we're still not done.

You are made of molecules. (Yes, even you.) And all your molecules are vibrating and jiggling around to beat the band, assuming that your body temperature is somewhere above absolute zero (see p. 82). In motion also are many of the atoms of which your molecules are made, and the electrons of which the atoms are made, and the electrons, atoms and molecules of everything else in the universe. They were all set into motion about 12 billion years ago (see p. 175) and have been quivering ever since.

So what is motion? In this chapter we'll see how everything from horses to speeding automobiles, sound waves, bullets, airplanes and orbiting satellites move from one place to another.

Horsing Around on the Highway

Why do they drive on the left in some countries and on the right in others?

It goes back to the fact that most humans are right-handed.

Long before we had modern weapons such as guns and automobiles, people had to do battle using swords and horses. Now if you are right-handed, you wear your sword on the left, so that you can draw it out rapidly with your right hand. But with that long, dangling scabbard encumbering your left side, the only way you can mount a horse is by throwing your free right leg over him. And unless you are in a Mel Brooks movie and want to wind up sitting backward on your steed, that means that the horse's head has to be pointing to your left. To this day we still train horses to be saddled and mounted from their left sides.

Now that you are mounted, you will want to stay on the left side as you start down the road, because anyone coming toward you will be on your right, and if that someone turns out to be an enemy, you can whip out your sword with your right hand and be in position to run the scoundrel through. Thus, prudent horsemen have always ridden on the left side of the road.

This left-side convention was also honored by horse-drawn carriages in order to avoid annoying collisions with horsemen. When horseless carriages made their appearance, some countries continued the habit, especially during the overlap period when both kinds of carriages were competing for road space.

So why do people drive on the right in the U.S. and many other countries?

When swords went the way of bows and arrows, the need for defending one's right flank disappeared and traffic rules were suddenly up for grabs. Younger or less tradition-bound countries migrated to the right, apparently because the right-handed majority feels more comfortable hugging the right side of the road. It quickly occurred to left-handed people that it was unhealthy to argue with them.

Some countries that I've been in must have large populations of ambidextrous people, because they seem to prefer the middle of the road.

Four-Grief Clovers

Why do highway and freeway intersections have to be so complicated, with all those loops and ramps?

They enhance the traffic flow--from construction companies to politicians' campaign chests.

Sorry.

They allow us to make left turns without getting killed by oncoming traffic. It's a matter of simple geometry.

When freeways and superhighways began to be built, engineers had to figure out how to allow traffic to make turns from one highway to an intersecting one without stopping for red lights. Because we drive on the right-hand side of the road in the U.S., right turns are no problem; you just veer off onto an exit ramp. But a left turn involves crossing over the lanes of opposing traffic, and that can cause conflicts that are better imagined than expressed.

Enter the cloverleaf. It allows you to turn 90 degrees to the left by turning 270 degrees to the right.

Think about it. A full circle is 360 degrees; a 360-degree turn would take you right back to your original direction. If two highways intersect at right angles, a left turn means turning 90 degrees to the left. But you'd get the same result by making three right turns of 90 degrees each. It's the same as when you want to turn left in the city and encounter a "No Left Turn" sign. What do you do? You make three right turns around the next block. That's what the loop of a cloverleaf does; it takes you 270 degrees around three-quarters of a circle, guiding you either over or under the opposing lanes of traffic as necessary.

The highway interchange is a four-leaf clover, rather than a two- or three-, because there are four different directions of traffic--going, for example, north, east, south and west--and each of them needs a way to make a left turn.

For readers in Britain, Japan and other countries where they drive on the left, just interchange the words "left" and "right" in the preceding paragraphs, and everything will come out all right. That is, all left. You know what I mean.

Excerpted from What Einstein Told His Barber: More Scientific Answers to Everyday Questions by Robert L. Wolke
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.