The Velocity of Honey and More Science of Everyday Life

by Jay Ingram

Book by Ingram, Jay

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Physics

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Jay Ingram CM (born March 20, 1945) is a Canadian author and broadcaster. He was host of the television show Daily Planet (originally titled @discovery.ca), which airs on Discovery Channel Canada, since the channel's inception in 1995. Ingram's last episode of Daily Planet aired on June 5, 2011. Ingram announced his retirement but stated he will make guest appearances on Daily Planet. He was succeeded by Dan Riskin. His book The End of Memory: A Natural History of Aging and Alzheimer’s is forthcoming from St. Martin's Press in 2015.

Reviews

[Paul Weiss · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some fascinating "why is the sky blue" kid questions!

Jay Ingram makes the science of everyday life accessible, fascinating and readable, answering many questions that we've puzzled over since our days as children - why does it always take longer to get there than it does to come home? how do outfielders catch those fly balls? and, just how do the mosquitoes always seem to find us? My personal favourite is a hilarious but perfectly reasonable explanation as to why we're convinced the eyes in that portrait on the wall follow us around the room!


Paul Weiss

[Angus Mcfarlane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book illustrates why science fascinates those of us who have invested our time and interest in allowing to curiosity to run free; even in the small details of everyday life, there are questions to marvel at and, occasionally, answers as well.

My wife thought I'd like this book and bought it for me. Turns out, like most things in life she was right. The book comprises a series of scientific anecdotes which in most cases address everyday phenomena. For example, why does the first tick of the second hand seem to take longer than the subsequent ticks? Or why mothers usually hold their babies on their left side, except for some unusual times (15th C), and places (ancient Maya) according to art history?

So each of the sections are quite short and feel familiar, although the explanations may not be. One of the things I like is the fact that this is not necessarily about solved problems. "I don't know" is an acceptable 'conclusion' despite some of the attempts made to find answers. Indeed it is surprising how seriously some of the problems have been taken. Usually there have been multiple studies on these topics - in proper journals - I assume with a decent impact factor!

Great book for those who like to ask 'why' about the events of everyday life and don't think rational reasons remove the wonder of them?

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

As far as explaining the weird physics and psychology of everyday life, I more than "liked" this book. It really was interesting and came up often in conversations with friends and coworkers. Were I to read it again, however, I would probably skip around more and read the chapters that really interested me rather than plowing through from cover to cover (something that my OCD-ness makes me do). It was also hard going from a very vibrantly written memoir to this. But I still liked it a lot, especially chapters on why time seems to go faster as we get older, whether you can sense people staring at you, how babies can count, and the like. I will probably use it in my 315 classes to show how it's possible to enter into academic conversations while using an engaging voice and avoiding the oh-so-stilted stylistics of the hard and social sciences.

[Degenerate Chemist · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mish mash of topics highlighting research into science that impacts our every day life. A competent and well written pop science book.

[Colleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Recommended to anyone who wants a layman’s explanation of many scientific occurances which we all encounter in our daily lives but don’t necessarily think about or understand. Why does a buttered slice of toast always land butter side down? Why does the trip to a new place seem so much longer than the trip back home? Why do all women carry their infants in their left arm? Very interesting.

[Kjersti · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of interesting, but not very compelling. While reading it I had a couple of "Oh, that's cool" or "I didn't know that's how it worked" moments, but otherwise kind of dry.

[Lucy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun read for those of us who enjoy this sort of thing. Just like the subtitle says - the science of everyday life. Does a slice of buttered toast always fall buttered side down? Why is it possible to skip a stone across a water surface? Does time really go by faster as you get older? How do curling stones curl? It would be great to have Jay Ingram as a neighbour. Invite him over for a BBQ and talk about how mosquitoes find their targets. Let him help your kids with their science projects. (His daughter and a friend did a project using round bagels with cream cheese instead of square toast with butter, and flung them flying from the table instead of just letting them fall. What a great dad!). Not all of the chapters are equally captivating, but they’re all relatively short so you’re soon on to the next topic.

[Monica Keszler · Rating 3 out of 5]

The velocity of honey was the speed this book took to read...haha...but seriously, would it kill to have a couple of diagrams about the phenomena happening in each essay? I found myself rereading whole paragraphs to try to figure out where key points were made, only to find that they key points got debunked later in the essay. I enjoyed the quirky explorations, but a lot of the joy got sucked out of them whenever I ran into another "aha! not so fast on your conclusions!" addendum, only to find that a lot of the essays end with "who really knows what's happening?." A fun disappearance into whimsy and wonder of real life for a while that gets kind of exhausting by the end.

[Mandeep Hanspal · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found the chapters related to physical phenomenos (I.e. tumbling toast, skipping stones) more interesting then those about human psychology. In these chapters he summarized the phenomenon by describing the physics behind it, a lot of it in his own words and he interpreted different studies well, making it a lot easier to follow. In comparison, chapters related to psychology of things (I.e. The ATM and your brain) felt like a summary of various research paper, and the writing did not capture my attention.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was an interesting read, and I particularly enjoyed the chapters about the mathematical abilities of animals, why women hold babies on their left side, and why toast always falls butter side down.
However, some sections seemed especially wordy and repetitive, so I would read until the answer was presented and then scan the rest of the chapter.

[David Broek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some interesting one-off essays. Nothing life-changing, but fun reads, nevertheless, as Jay Ingram looks at the science of everyday life. Most of the factoids, essays, and their topics are almost immediately forgettable, which is why it didn’t get a better rating, but I enjoyed the book regardless, and I appreciated the exercise for my brain as I was reading it.

[Carolyn Frances · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually read this quite a long while agobwhen it was released but it was sitting as "currently reading" on my good reads account for some reason.
I cannot really remember it now but I know I enjoyed it.

[Devan Frigault · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some cool insights into everyday science that make you think differently about your day-to-day

[Caitlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting read. There are some things to think about now in my daily life when I come across certain objects/ situations.

[Rossdavidh · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Velocity of Honey (Subtitle: and More Science of Everyday Life), by Jay Ingram

Ingram's book does have one chapter on honey, but really each chapter is its own topic. If there is any unifying theme, it is the same as the one that binds these three books together here: science can tell you something useful on almost any topic, and also discover questions we didn't even realize we didn't know the answer to. He doesn't just find a physics paper on the sport of curling that appears in a technical journal (Canadian, of course). He finds several of them. He compares it to how pint glasses slide on a well-waxed bar counter (it bends the opposite way, by the way).

He tells us about mosquitoes, about those little seeds with wings that we called "helicopters" when I was a kid (the true name is apparently "samara", or at any rate that's the helicopter part), about how dilated pupils is a turn-on to men who have no idea that they are turned on by such a thing. He talks about the physics of how a coin such as a quarter (or a loonie, if you're using the Canadian dollar coin) spins to a stop, and why it looks and sounds different just before it stops. Really, come to think of it, about half the chapters in this book have some kind of connection to things you see in a bar. This is basically a book about science for people who hang out in bars.

And you know what, that's a glorious thing. Science should spend more time telling us about bar games. When scientists spent most of their time investigating things that the rest of the population had some experience with (falling objects, pressure and temperature, even the stars and planets were commonly viewed objects for the population of that time), they managed to convince a deeply religious Europe to shrug off their religious shackles and give science a chance. Now, scientists spend most of their time investigating things that most of us never see (ancestors from the distant past, tenth dimensions, particles that exist only in cyclotrons), and are frustrated when they try to tell the rest of the population about something they've found and get no response. Fortunately, there are exceptions to this general sad state of affairs, and Ingram has found them and brought back reports. Good for him, and good for us.

[Seanmallory · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Velocity of Honey is a great title and a great chapter in the book. As a matter of fact, the first handful of chapters are great. However, it begins to be noticeable that the Ingram ran out of topics as the book goes on. It's all very interesting, but when mystery turns to analysis, some of the flavor is lost. Don't get me wrong, it's fascinating to learn the reasons why things work. It's just that some topics don't need to be explained as much as others. Basically, I would recommend reading this book, I'd only recommend picking out the most interesting-sounding chapters first and reading those individually. That said, the final chapter is very good and I'd recommend it to anyone. Ever wonder why time seems to move faster as you get older? Learn why - the science, the physics, and most impressively, the mathematics.

[Dan Cohen · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very lightweight popular science book. Although I applaud the overall Idea - a book that looks at various everyday phenomena and looks into the science behind them - I found too many of the chapters to be dull. In particular, the ones looking at psychological phenomena did not leave me feeling that I had learned a lot, or that the subject matter was really that interesting. I also got no sense that the author was in any way an expert. It feels like a book anyone could have written if they only had a degree of curiosity and the time and inclination to do some research.

[Amy Wilks · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book but some of the chapters became tedious. I know the author was trying to incorporate all of the pertinent data about each topic, but it would have been nice if he could have summarized and condensed things a bit more. That said, there are some fascinating data and studies about unusual things like why mosquitos bite some people more than others, why people can feel someone staring at them from behind, and why time seems to pass faster as we age.

[Jo Oehrlein · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is a collection of essays accessible to the non-scientist on science reasons behind common phenomena. Chapters include discussions on the sport of curling, falling toast, why most people hold babies on their left side, and many more. Each chapter is short – 5 to 10 pages. The best parts are the descriptions of the tests created by scientists to verify their hypotheses. Also, Mr. Ingram is more than willing to admit when science doesn’t have all the answers. Much recommended.

[Kirsty Darbyshire · Rating 2 out of 5]

Book about the science of every day life. I picked it up to pass the time in a bookshop a few months ago and found the first few chapters very entertaining. Then I spotted it in the library and decided I might as well finish it but didn't enjoy the rest of it half as much as I thought I enjoyed the beginning.

[Phil · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quick little batch of essays about the science of real world things. It's fun and easy although not strictly informative or in depth. Probably what you'd expect from the once-host of the Discovery Channel's Daily Planet. Being 10 years old doesn't impact the work too much as the problems are pretty universally interesting and confusing. Worth a look should the book pass your way.

[Theresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book! This book explains scientifically why some things one knows to be true are in fact true. The chapters are entertaining--short enough to cover several topics and yet long enough to go into enough detail to give the reader enough information to feel satisfied.

[Anarmaa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simple, nice book trying to explain physics of everyday life. However, physics behind simple phenomenon is not quite simple. Well, don't afraid of what I just said. There is no number, math, theory, formula in the book :)

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

Readability 7. Rating 3. The book seemed like it had promise – everyday science to illustrate the mysterious and fascinating that goes on around us. Unfortunately, it was a pretty muddled effort. The first few pieces are OK, but then he goes into a fairly terminal tailspin.

[dejah_thoris · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice little book written for the layperson on various everyday science questions like why do stones skip or curling rocks curl? Great for light summer reading if you're used to reading nonfiction or a good entry level book for those who might like a change.

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

It wasn't what I expected.

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Been reading this for a long time...

A descent batch of "short stories" that talk about the science of everyday life. I actually referenced this just yesterday..

[Ian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jay Ingram explains various scientific ideas buried in ordinary everyday experience. It's good, but lacks personlity that stripped-down science books need.

[Samuel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Snippets of interesting everyday science from all over the place.

[Colleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't enjoy this quite as much as 'The Science of Everyday Life' but it was still good. This book explains the science behind some of the mundane and interesting quirks of everyday life.