Chemical Education Today
What Einstein Didn’t Know Robert L. Wolke. Bird Lane Press/Carol Publishing Group: New York, 1997. xiii + 271 pp (incl. index). ISBN 1-55972398X. U.S. $19.95; Canada $27.95.
Academic chemists, surrounded by texts, treatises, monographs, reviews, and assorted other traditional resources designed to instruct the needy in matters of Chemistry often forget that the “needy” include those un- or ill-acquainted with even the less arcane aspects of this discipline. There has always been, and continues to be, a major need for “compendia” that help fill this need, good “treatises” that respond to everyday questions, the answers to which have a significant chemistry component, in user-friendly language with a very low fog-index and, hopefully, possessing a bit of wit in the presentation. This is a particularly pertinent concern in the dedication of money, time, and energy on the part of the American Chemical Society to the convincing of a disinterested and often hostile nonscience community that chemists are really “good people”, make desirable neighbors, and do not traffic solely in incomprehensible practices that add “chemicals” to our “natural” chemical-free surroundings. The book is subtitled Scientific Answers to Everyday Questions; it quite admirably responds to the above concerns and can be recommended with considerable enthusiasm. (It’s cheap, too!) It poses nearly a hundred “everyday” questions, conveniently divided into seven “everyday” categories: “Around the House”; “In the Kitchen”; “In the Garage”; “The Marketplace”; “The Great Outdoors”; “Water, Water Everywhere”; and “…and That’s the Way it Is”. Some representative questions include “How can cricket chirps tell us the temperature?”; “Why are bubbles round?”; “How does soap know what’s dirt?”; “Why won’t your shower stay the way you set it?” (that particular one delighted this reviewer). The question can also tackle the nonsuperficial, for example “What does e = mc2 mean to you?”; “Why can’t we recycle energy?” In a representative example of the author’s presentation skills, a section headed “The Cosmic Boogie” posed the question: “They taught me in chemistry class that all atoms and molecules are in perpetual motion. But then they taught me in physics class that nothing can keep moving forever without being shoved. (Isaac Newton may not have put it quite that way.) So who’s shoving all those atoms and molecules around?” Typically, the author dedicated approximately 2.5 pages to his response. The answers are occasionally followed by a supplemental commentary entitled “Nitpicker’s Corner” that provides the answer with additional depth. Further there are 48 designated Try-It experiments the reader can undertake, using immediately accessible household materials and equipment, to illustrate and affirm the explanations provided. Even further, 17 Bar Bets, reflecting examples where “conventional wisdom” is not correct, are singled out for potential use in earning an occasional free drink. The book also provides a four-page glossary of some elementary chemistry terms (e.g., polar, redox reaction, spectrum) and a quite respectable 12-page index. The author, Robert Wolke, a Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh, has conducted research in both chemistry and physics. Throughout the book his emphasis is that chemistry can be made understandable to the initiated and that it really is fun. The book is a satisfying (and occasionally edifying) read for those of us who think we already know the stuff, but makes an excellent gift to the young with open minds and particularly to those acquaintances who are quite convinced that they don’t (and by implication can’t possibly) understand chemistry. Most of us will agree that the lattermost is an area where we need all the help we can get. Jack Stocker Department of Chemistry University of New Orleans New Orleans, LA 70148
JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu • Vol. 75 No. 8 August 1998 • Journal of Chemical Education
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