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

by Mark Miodownik

This fascinating new book by the bestselling scientist and engineer Mark Miodownik is an expert tour of the world of the droplets, heartbeats, and ocean waves that we come across every day. Structured around a plane journey that sees encounters with substances from water and glue to coffee and wine, Liquid Rules shows how these liquids can bring death and destruction as well as wonder and fascination.

From László Bíró's revolutionary pen and Abraham Gesner's kerosene to cutting-edge research on self-repairing roads and liquid computers, Miodownik uses his winning formula of scientific storytelling to bring the everyday to life. He reveals why liquids can flow up a tree but down a hill, why oil is sticky, how waves can travel so far, and how to make the perfect cup of tea. Here are the secret lives of substances.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Chemistry, Audiobook, Physics, Popular Science, Stem

262 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 23, 2018

About the author

Mark Miodownik is Professor of Materials and Society at University College London and the Director of the UCL Institute of Making. He was chosen by The Times as one of the top 100 most influential scientists in the UK. Miodownik is a broadcaster known best for giving the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures broadcast on BBC4. Miodownik is also a writer on science and engineering issues, a presenter of documentaries and a collaborator in interactive museum events.

Reviews

[Petra X · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book, to me, wasn't in the same class as Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World which I read, got really excited about an ordered this one. I'm not sure why I didn't enjoy it as much, it could be that I didn't really find any of the liquids as fascinating as I did the materials, specifically concrete (my new obsession) and chocolate (my constant obsession) and aerogel. It could be that I found the structure of this book a bit cutesy. It was set around an airplane flight to San Francisco, and all the liquids involved from kerosene to the molten rock that the tectonic plates under San Francisco float on. The ending was worthy of a let's-tie-up-all-the-loose-ends novel, rather than a pop science book.

But that could all just be me, others who don't find concrete any more fascinating than water, or chocolate than making a cup of tea, might 5 star it. But it's 4 stars from me.
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Notes on reading Everybody (normal) is revolted when bodily liquids escape their proper place. Mucus belongs in the lungs and is disgusting when it's coughed up green and yellow. Saliva is fine in the mouth, but disgusting when it's drooling down the chin, stomach acid belongs in the tummy, half-chewed food, saliva and bile vomited up is beyond disgusting, poo and pee belong in the toilet, not squished underfoot, blood is supposed to stay invisble under the skin or absorbed by a Tampax, not running down the thighs. There are two major exceptions to this.

Tears. Seeing someone crying makes people sympathetic, want to put an arm around the crying person and comfort them. Although, the author says, a crying woman affects testosterone and men find it more difficult to get an erection. I don't believe this for a minute. Crying never stopped a rapist. The other is sex. Deep kissing, tongue licking, a mingling of saliva is lovely, erotic and passionate. A revulsion to the liquids of sex wouldn't have boded well for human reproduction. being as it is a messy process full of viscous liquids that are part of the enjoyment.

I'd never really thought of that before reading it. He has an odd mind, this author, always highlighting something perfectly obvious you've never given a thought to.
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I hope this is as fascinating as Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World. He really caught me on concrete and chocolate. So far the best thing I've learned is that oil lamps were the most advanced technology in home lighting for thousands of years. The oil was hard to prepare - 100 olives for 1 hour of lamp-burning, smoked or had a dangerously low flash point - or all three. Then came whale oil which was perfect in every way except that it meant killing off the whales, over half a million it is estimated. When kerosene (still used today as primary home lighting in areas of many countries including my island during the 6 month power outtage after hurricane Irma) was invented it saved the whales.

The technology of wicks was interesting. The oil, or melted wax by osmosis and surface tension actually climbs the wick and is not ignited until the top, the flame does not travel downwards. It makes for a safer form of lighting that just holding a match to a pool of oil. I wonder what they did before matches? Carried a flint I suppose.

[Debbie W. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why I chose to listen to this audiobook:
1. once again, GR friend Howard's review captivated me enough to check out this nonfiction read;
2. I really enjoyed author Mark Miodownik's book Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World, so I added this one to my WTR list;
3. it's a free loan via Hoopla; and,
4. April 2024 is my "Aqueous Titles" Month!

Praises:
1. having enjoyed my high school chemistry classes many years ago, I could easily follow Miodownik's basic descriptions of how atoms and molecules work in liquids, how liquids differ from solids and gases, and why liquids "behave" differently from others, all detailed in simple layman's terms;
2. using some humorous anecdotal comments about a variety of liquids he encounters while on a flight from London to San Francisco, Miodownik discusses fuels, alcohols, adhesives, liquid crystals, bodily fluids, various beverages, soap, refrigeration, ink, tar, volcanoes, and of course, water in all its wonder; and,
3. narrator Michael Page is quite the entertaining storyteller!

Niggle:
Although I do have a basic knowledge of how matter "works" (i.e. solids, liquids, and gases), some of his explanations made my mind wander at times.

Overall Thoughts:
Quite the informative read/listen about the fun and frightening aspects of liquids, but not as enthralling as Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World.
If the audiobook narrated by Michael Page exists, I wouldn't be adverse to listening to this author's third book in this series, It's a Gas: The Sublime and Elusive Elements That Expand Our World.

[Jenna ❤ ❀ ❤ · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a fun book! I love books that are chock-full of facts and that is what Liquid Rules is. Mark Miodownik takes us along on a flight he was on from London to San Francisco. Now, if you don't fancy being on a plane that long, not to worry. You'll still be able to sit in a comfy chair whilst reading this book, you won't feel any turbulence (though if you're in an earthquake-prone area you might feel the ground shake), and you won't be holding your breath because your neighbour inconsiderately indulged in a great big bowl of beans before climbing aboard. You will, however, probably have to get up and get your own drink and food (which will no doubt taste better than that on a plane so it's worth it), and you won't have a pilot directing you to stay in your seat if you do experience an earthquake.

So, let's take off. Mr. Miodownik discusses several different liquids that are involved in his flight. Beginning with the peanut butter he is not allowed to take on board, he breaks the liquids down to a molecular level, explaining why it is they behave in the manner they do. Why do some liquids flow more than others? Why are some viscous? Why can't you pour peanut butter into a glass and drink it and why the hell can't airport security tell the difference between innocent peanut butter and an explosive?

We learn about the fuels that power planes, we learn why some are more combustible than others. We next get to the stickiness of liquids and learn that planes' wings are glued on! Thankfully I never sat next to Mr. Miodownik on a flight because I'd be worried the entire time that the wings would fall off (though he does explains why this is not going to happen). After reading that, I couldn't help but thinking of all the following liquids discussed in a different setting than the plane flying over an ocean. Instead, you're on the ground, on a deserted island, after the glue melted and the plane's wings fell off. If you're lucky, your parachute worked and you just happened to be over a tiny bit of land at the time. So now we've entered "Lost" and liquids take on a whole new meaning.

Maybe your luck went even further and the drinks trolley happened to land next to you on the island. You have bottles of water, juice, and if you're really lucky, wine! So as we learn why we get drunk, what makes the molecules and chemicals in alcohol affect us in the way that they do, you can picture yourself sitting on a beach, enjoying a nice glass of red whilst watching the sun set over the horizon.

We also learn about oceans -- why we can swim and float, how tsunamis work, and why tides crash against the shore. We learn about LCD screens, which you probably won't be able to watch now, which is disappointing because you were in the middle of a movie when the plane unfortunately decided to break apart. We learn about clouds, which is important to know when you're stuck on a deserted island.... when you see certain kinds, you will know you better get your ass moving and start working on a shelter rather than sitting and wondering how the movie ended. We learn how to brew the perfect cups of coffee and tea, just in case you are lucky and some coffee beans or tea leaves happened to make their way to the island with you. Of course, you'll need to be able to start a fire so hopefully you can find some dry wood and.... damn! Now you remember airport security took your lighter and matches and you refused to go to Girl/Boy Scouts when you were a kid which means you don't know how to start a fire by rubbing two sticks together. Now you have no way of making a fire and all the knowledge you've just acquired about brewing the perfect cup of tea or coffee is wasted. Know what else you've just learned and can't make? Soap. Turns out you need ashes to make soap and ashes come from fire sooo... looks like you're SOL. Why oh why couldn't they have let you take just one lighter with you aboard the plane??? Didn't they care how much it would help your chance of survival if the plane's wings fell off and you managed to safely float to a deserted island somewhere in the middle of a huge ocean? Such uncaring people!

Next we learn about volcanoes and lava and you really hope your luck holds out and this island you've found yourself on is not actually an active volcano.... if it is, well..... you're not so lucky after all.

The author ends the book discussing ways in which we can use liquids to make our materials more sustainable, which may or may not be of use to you on your new island home.

All in all, this was a very interesting read. Sometimes the chemistry was a bit over my head but I learned a lot which is the most important factor when reading NF. I was even able to share a fun tidbit with a co-worker this morning -- that sticky stuff on the back of a Post-It note? It's rubber! So, fun book, fun facts = a book worth reading.

One question I'm left with after reading this book though, is how the hell did the author get a DIRECT flight from London to San Francisco???

[K.J. Charles]

A moderately interesting look at liquids in their various forms--really more of a collection of facts than a deep dive--which I had to stop reading because of the framing device. Basically it's framed as a train of thought, with the narrator on a plane talking about various sorts of liquids, with the plane journey as jumping off point for each (kerosene, saliva, the sea, washing hands, drinking coffee) which is fine, but he goes on and on about 'Susan' the woman sitting next to him, and by about 60% it was freaking me the hell out. Susan is just sitting there reading her book and this guy is obsessively wondering whether she likes her coffee, what she's thinking about his breathing, how she might react to him getting up---JFC, mate, she's just trying to get through the flight!

Absolutely ridiculous overreaction on my part to a fictional premise for a pop science book, but it still bothered me so much I had to stop reading. LEAVE SUSAN ALONE.

...I may need help.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A surprisingly fun read. The author takes us on a journey on an airplane with some delightful side trips including various discoveries. My favorite part was when he describes making a refreshing cup of tea. Narration by Michael Page is sublime.

[Howard · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 Stars for Liquid Rules: The Delightful and Dangerous Substances that Flow Through Our Lives (audiobook) by Mark Miodownik read by Michael Page.
This was a wonderful overview of how all kinds of liquids work. The author really makes this scientific look at this subject interesting and personal.

[Hank · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was excellent, but it really needs to be listened to. The narrator gives the dry British humor its required emphasis and makes it better than the same phrases echoing in my own head.

This is a book about science told via real world applications, sort of a "I wonder how .... works?" with topics ranging from explosives to ball point pens. I found all 13 subjects fascinating and the way Miodownik told them extremely entertaining.

Highly recommended, very quick listen

[Ints · Rating 4 out of 5]

Šī grāmata, man šķiet, ir uzstādījusi rekordu laika ziņā, kuru tā pavadījusi kā aizsākta, bet nepabeigta. Sāku lasīt aptuveni pirms diviem gadiem un kaut kā nevarēju izlasīt tālāk par pāris nodaļām. Tā nu viņa man plauktā par savu nepabeigtību atgādināja labu laiku, līdz es saņēmos pamēģināt vēlreiz.

Grāmatas autors ir apņēmies izstāstīt visu par šķidrumiem un izdarīt to strukturēti. Grāmata tiek pasniegta kā lidojums no Londonas uz Sanfrancisko, kurā autors pievērš uzmanību šķidrumiem, ar kuriem nākas sastapties. Tas paver iespēju pastāstīt lasītājam par dažādu šķidrumu īpašībām, kas savukārt ļauj lasītājam apzināties to, ka pasaule ir brīnumu pilna.

Bet nu par to, ko lasītājs var uzzināt grāmatā – kādēļ viļņi gandrīz vienmēr ir paralēli jūras krastam, cik olīvas vajadzīgas, lai namsaimniecību apgaismotu ar vienu lampu, kā alkohols mūs apdullina, par lodīšu pildspalvu izgudrošanu un kā izvēlēties pareizo tinti, par to, kāpēc, autoraprāt, drošības instruktāža pirms pacelšanās ir vairāk rituāls nekā kaut kas ar praktisku vērtību, par mākoņu veidošanās procesu, par to kādēļ drēbes izžūst temperatūrā zem ūdens vārīšanās punkta, par šķidro kristālu ekrānu tapšanu, par to kādēļ mēs tā satraucamies, redzot savus ķermeņa izdalījumus, par salīmētajām lidmašīnām, kāpēc kokos ūdens tek uz augšu, par šļūdoņu ietekmi uz kontinentālajām plātnēm, un par to,ka kečups ir neņūtona šķidrums.

Visiem draugu lokā ir tāds cilvēks, kas runājot visu laiku maina sarunas tematu (ja nav, tad tu tas esi pats). Šīs grāmatas autors ir tāds cilvēks, grāmata sevī ietver lielu informācijas apjomu, kas pasniegta kā interesantu faktu gūzma. Lasītājs var būt drošs, ka no tā, kas izlasīts vienā lapaspusē, viņš neatcerēsies ne desmito tiesu, jo pēc tās būs bijusi vēl viena lapaspuse ar tikpat interesantām lietām, un tad vēl viena un tā līdz beigām. Es sevi uzskatu par diezgan rūdītu populārzinātnisko grāmatu lasītāju, bet šī grāmata mani pārspēja.

Bērnu dienās es par šādu grāmatu būtu sajūsmā, jo kas gan var būt labāks par informācijas drupatu tūkstošiem vienā grāmatā? Šķiet, esmu kļuvis vecs un apmāts ar neracionālu vēlmi atcerēties pēc iespējas vairāk no izlasītā. Nelīdzēja pat tas, ka es lielāko daļu no informācijas biju lasījis iepriekš un te sanāca tikai tāda atkārtošana. Pēc pāris lapaspusēm manas smadzenes vienkārši izslēdzās un nācās lasīt dozēti un lēnām. Tā nu man tā lasīšana ievilkās uz pāris gadiem.

Grāmatai lieku 8 no 10 ballēm, šī ir no tām, kuru var uzšķirt jebkurā vietā un lasīt neko nezaudējot. Ja patīk populārzinātniskās grāmatas ar milzīgu faktu apjomu, tad iesaku pamēģināt.

[Alina · Rating 4 out of 5]

***Note: I received a copy curtesy of Netgalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in exchange for an honest review.

Using a plane flight as a framing device, Mark Miodownik explains all kinds of liquids, like peanut butter, kerosene, glue, alcohol, ink, etc. He goes through their physical properties, their history and discovery, and their uses.
It's a very interesting book, facilitating the understanding of how things around us work and giving scientifical insights on substances we often take for granted.

[simona.citeste · Rating 4 out of 5]

O carte super interesantă cu informații faine și uneori cu o abordare amuzantă.

Mi se pare însă de evitat dacă nu-ți place chimia deloc pentru că te vei lovi de explicații ale structurii moleculelor și chestii de astea.

[Joy D · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is full of scientific information about the liquids we encounter in our everyday lives. We learn about substances such as tea, coffee, peanut butter, ocean waves, blood, saliva, ink, jet fuel, glues, alcohol, clouds, LCD screens, liquid soap, and much more. The author structures the chapters around a trip by air from London to San Francisco, where he takes the normal routines of flight and relates them to various fluids. It is a nifty device. If you have ever wondered how candles or ball point pens work, this book supplies the answers. It occasionally ventures into some complex chemistry, but generally is a book of straight-forward popular science. I enjoyed learning these fun facts.

[Peter Tillman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this well-researched book by a materials scientist. He mixes stuff from his own experience with more general commentary. It's an easy, non-technical read, though he gets a bit preachy at times. Here's the best review I saw online, from Science magazine: https://blogs.sciencemag.org/books/20... This is the one to read first, and I don't have much to add. (For some reason, this edition is showing a Spanish blurb.)
The framing device, a flight from London to San Francisco, worked pretty well, but got a little strained. Overall: 3.7 stars, rounded up. Recommended reading.

From my notes: Kerosene, aka jet fuel. Pretty safe to handle, but it has a LOT of potential energy. A fully-fueled jetliner makes a fine flying bomb, as we discovered in the terror attacks on 9-11-2001.
The author liked to go swimming in the sea off Dublin, even in winter -- a surprisingly popular activity there. Until one day, when he went out by himself, and found out why no one else was there.... He almost drowned.
And I loved the story of the invention of the ballpoint pen! By a Hungarian named Biro, in the 1940s. Ballpoints are still called "biros" in the UK. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballpoi...
His chapter on the origins and history of inks and pens, from ancient Egypt to modern times, is one of the highlights of the book.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 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

[Charles Haywood · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Liquid Rules," like most good books in its genre, explains in an interesting way why certain things are the way they are. This is popularized science, and such books tend to fall into one of two categories, straight science or politicized science. I could have, if I had wanted to read the latter on vacation, picked instead "The Uninhabitable Earth," a recent screed on global warming by David Wallace-Wells. Fortunately, however, I chose wisely, and therefore learned a few things while enjoying myself, instead of choking on the dry and boring leftovers of global warming alarmism.

The frame of "Liquid Rules" is of a London to San Francisco flight, during which the author, Mark Miodownik (a materials scientist), meditates on the various liquids with which he comes into contact. Expertly and seamlessly worked into each discussion is the science behind liquids. Miodownik begins, as the plane takes off, with explosive liquids, not so much of the terrorist kind but of the fuel kind, focusing on kerosene (which, technically, is not explosive). Then, as he tries to relax, intoxicating liquids, where he confirms what I’ve tended to believe, that most wine appreciation is essentially a fraud, as shown by among other things that experts given white wine dyed red almost uniformly describe it with the nomenclature they use only for red wines. Next comes water. We also get glues; paints; expectorated bodily fluids such as saliva and mucus; cleaning fluids; coolants; ink; clouds; and magma. All in all, a fascinating brief tour.

Miodownik manages to get his facts right nearly one hundred percent of the time, a rare feat for popularized writing, which for some reason seems to attract basic errors like flies to honey, even though you’d think editors would find it easier to fact check than technical writing. And I certainly learned a wide variety of interesting facts, some about liquids, some only indirectly related. For example, the master nurse Florence Nightingale was not only a crusader for sanitation in military hospitals in the Crimean War; she was also a non-trivial mathematician, and, more importantly, the inventor of new graphical means of presenting data, including a type of pie chart. (She is not to blame for PowerPoint.) Beyond mere interesting facts, two major thoughts occurred to me on reading this book, one about the history of science, the other about airplane service. They are grumpy and only tangentially related to the book, I warn you.

Ruminating on ink, Miodownik ascribes the invention of the fountain pen to engineers employed by “the caliph of the Maghreb . . . in the year 974.” Of itself, this is of only passing interest, but if examined closely, it is emblematic of the political corruption of the history of science. One part of that corruption is that false claims for Islamic scientific superiority completely pervade popular writing about science history, due to an unceasing global campaign of propaganda by Muslim apologists. If you read any Wikipedia article about any scientific invention prior to A.D. 1800 or so, for example, you are nearly certain to be treated to a lengthy discourse, in a special section, about how Muslims, or those living under Muslim rule, invented the object or process in question. Books are not much better, though the publishing process sometimes culls out the most obvious falsehoods.

This is not terribly surprising; it is the normal approach for all groups with a severe inferiority complex. The Soviets and the East Germans, for example, used to claim that Communists invented everything, from fire to the telephone. But that had much less impact on public knowledge, because there was no pressure in the West to believe such silly things, and it was before the internet and Wikipedia, when facts were always filtered through professional editors rather than propagated directly to the masses by bored, unemployed ideologues who cannot be made responsible for errors or lies. Back then, you had to read Pravda, or visit an East Bloc museum, to even hear the claims. Today, though, it’s not just Muslims pushing self-puffery, because Muslims are an approved victim group in the liturgy of intersectionality. And lifting them out of oppression requires, by all people who are woke, exaggerating or manufacturing historical contributions for the chosen groups, including Muslims. We are doubtless only a year or two away from Muslim History Month, if any free months can be found. You heard it here first.

So presumably Wikipedia is from where Miodownik got this obscure tidbit on a Fatimid caliph’s supposed role in inventing the fountain pen. But if examined closely, one can see how the claim is totally false, and how such false claims are dealt into common knowledge. A fountain pen is a pen with a reservoir that applies ink to the page by capillary action, a difficult technical task. Although he does say he thinks that “this seems unlikely,” due to its difficulty, Miodownik also states as fact that the caliph “was presented with the first fountain pen recorded in history.” The only source for this appears to be an article from 1981 in the Journal of Semitic Studies, entitled “A Medieval Islamic Prototype of the Fountain Pen?” Wikipedia also summarizes the takeaway of the article as the caliph “was provided” such a pen. But the article actually only reports that the caliph asked for a pen with a reservoir, that could be held upside down, and when told this was not possible, replied “It is possible if God so wills.” There is no suggestion such a pen was really made, or even developed in theory, and given that it was only in the nineteenth century that such a pen was created, after innumerable failures (including by Leonardo da Vinci), the chances are pretty clearly zero that it was. Yet we are expected to swallow this, and thousands of other similarly dubious claims, as evidence that supposedly oppressed groups really are responsible for modern science and the benefits of the modern world, instead of hated straight white males. Such propaganda is wholesaled across our entire society, in an attempt to, for a wide variety of supposedly oppressed groups, either claim accomplishments that they did not make, or exaggerate or manufacture the importance of unimportant accomplishments.

True, inventors in Islamic societies for a few hundred years made a variety of second-order scientific discoveries, some of which were used as building blocks by later, far more successful, Western scientists. To call those, as they always are, “Muslim inventions” is also propaganda; it ignores that many or most inventions in the Golden Age of Islam were actually done by Christians or Jews, since Islam always had a tense relationship with science. (It also gives its propaganda nature away by that Western discoveries are not called “Christian inventions.”) By itself, how the fountain pen was invented is not very important. But this little propaganda vignette illustrates the corruption of reality by political ideology. Tens of millions of people over the past several years, since this project really got going, have had implanted in their brains the delusional idea that Islam, or for that matter any culture other than the West, had a great deal to do with modern science. Is this the worst thing ever? I suppose not, but it’s just another example of the rank stupidity of the present. Indulging fantasies about the past is no way to make the future flourish.

Let’s switch focus to a different oppressed group: airline passengers. Since Miodownik is on an airline flight, in economy class, he notes several times in passing the various accompanying discomforts, chief among them awful service. He discusses the tea and coffee he is offered, by a flight attendant “who looked at me with a combination of boredom and impatience.” Bingo. I’ve been flying for thirty years now, and I never cease to be amazed at how the abysmal service of flight attendants every year manages to plumb new depths. But why is this?

Bad service, meaning incompetent, rude, or nonexistent, is a different complaint from the general discomfort of flying, where we are all subjected to security theater and are packed into ever smaller seats with ever fewer amenities. That is a function of cost, and the simple fact is that most people demand incompatible ends—they want the cheapest possible flights, and they then complain when they are offered the cheapest possible way of getting them somewhere. Moreover, the airlines, due to the power of big data and algorithms, have the upper hand, able for the first time in many decades to consistently extract profits (aided hugely by the failure of US regulators to forbid anti-competitive consolidation), by slicing and dicing the pricing of flights and amenities. But that is not why service by flight attendants is bad.

Flight attendants today do almost no actual work. They provide nearly zero service even on the longest flights. We can all attest to this, or at least economy class flyers can. I was on a fourteen-hour flight last year, and a few hours after takeoff, small bottles of water were offered. When I declined, I was admonished in no uncertain terms that the offer would not be repeated, so I had better take it; the tone made clear I was not to ask later, either. When yesterday I flew on a three-hour flight, the four economy-class flight attendants relaxed, reading books and using iPads, in the very back of the plane (except for one in first class)—and drew a thick, opaque curtain between themselves and the passengers so they would not be bothered. They only appeared in the aisles twice: once to throw crackers at us, and once right before landing to flog credit cards to a captive audience.

Oh, sure, there are occasional excellent flight attendants who go above and beyond the unbelievably minimal service requirements set by the airlines. My family had one on a flight five or six years ago. Not since then, though. And the exception proves the rule. Supposedly Southwest flight attendants are better, though in my limited experience they don’t actually provide service, they’re just somewhat more pleasant.

The natural evolution of this would be to have fewer flight attendants. From the airlines’ perspective, a lot of money could be saved by not paying people to do nothing. But FAA regulations (14 CFR § 121.391) require a set number of flight attendants, and the required number of flight attendants has not changed since 1965. The FAA’s theory is that flight attendants are there for the passengers’ safety. From the FAA’s perspective, this is true. But from the perspective of both the airlines and the passengers, it is not true, since flight attendants have always had the dual, independent, roles of service and safety. In practice, the former role is vastly more important, given that safety incidents in which flight attendants are relevant are vanishingly few.

If anyone’s safety is important to attendants, it is theirs—witness their rage in 2013 when their union howled down the FAA’s desire to allow short pocketknives on flights again—and then in 2017 demanded, and got, a federal law forbidding the FAA from ever permitting such a thing, openly celebrating their victory over the infamous “knife lobby.” Heaven forbid that flight attendants take any risk, no matter how small, when the costs can instead be pushed off onto passengers! And on the very few times I’ve seen a call button pressed in the past ten years, the barely restrained anger of the flight attendant at being summoned like a servant by someone she regards as a peon, when she finally shows up, is always a sight to behold. Along similar lines, on most flights the “fasten seat belts” sign is on for seventy or more percent of the flight, not for safety reasons, but to discourage movement that might inconvenience the attendants (and also to limit possible liability for the airlines, in the very unlikely event of enough unexpected turbulence to injure unsecured passengers). Twenty years ago, the norm was to turn off the sign during the middle phase of ascent. It certainly suits flight attendants’ hauteur to claim their primary role is safety. But in a free economic system, now that on any flight less than five hours there is essentially zero service, the airlines, given they cannot trim the number of attendants, would instead require them to provide service, so as to achieve customer satisfaction. But they don’t. Why? As far as I can tell, this is largely a function of unions, and also of anti-discrimination laws.

The union has to exercise its power in some way. It can’t negotiate on keeping its members’ jobs, because they aren’t under any threat. They could negotiate on pay, but as with most unions, that is not their primary goal, or at least it does not appear to be. Their primary goal seems to be to allow flight attendants to choose flight assignments based on seniority. This means that the most elderly, and widest, grim battleaxes serve on the plum long-haul flights, where service would be most necessary, but where the attendants can instead run their eBay stores from the back of the plane while relaxing (something I have personally witnessed).

In a brief search, I quickly turned up a 2016 Washington Post article, which describes what else the unions are now doing for their members. “The flight attendants union has been pushing for some time now for federal legislation that would require airlines to give them the same minimum 10 hours rest between flights that pilots must receive.” Yup, really. Now those who serve us coffee and tea (rarely and badly) need more rest. Their rationale? “Since Sept. 11, we became the last line of defense in aviation security,” said Sara Nelson, a United Airlines flight attendant who became international president of The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO, in June 2014. ‘Flight attendants handle threats and security threats all the time that many passengers don’t even know about.’ ” Sure they do. Right after they finish shipping their latest eBay purchase. The reality is that flight attendants have nothing to do with security. They know as well as we do that if they were to dare to, for example, point out a suspicious-looking Muslim individual, the only type of individual likely to attack a US plane, they would be severely punished both by their employer and the press, and pilloried in social media. And if there were any fighting to be done, it wouldn’t be done by the flight attendants, but by male passengers on the flight capable of fighting.

What would a rational system look like? Well, it might look like the 1960s and 1970s, where young unmarried women could see the world and find a husband by becoming flight attendants. If you were ugly, fat, or old, no need to apply. This system has a long pedigree; it was used by Fred Harvey in the creation of his chain of Western restaurants, where the servers were the famous Harvey Girls. For many international airlines, this is still the case. But for United States carriers, and others in the same civilizational dead end such as British Airways and Qantas, age- and sex-discrimination rules prevent this today. (I don’t think there should be any such rules; I would only have the government ban private discrimination in employment against African Americans—no other group.) Of course, given the caliber of today’s passengers, that system probably wouldn’t work today anyway. I have not flown on any of the international airlines that maintain the old system, like Cathay Pacific, but presumably they are higher priced, and therefore attract a different clientele. Surveying the average United States airline flight down the middle aisle is similar to surveying the average Wal Mart aisle—it does not show a lot of high-quality marriage material for a young woman. Which society-wide lack of marriage material, along with the degradation brought by feminism and a host of related, Hillbilly Elegy-type problems, is a big part of why marriage and birth rates are in the basement.

I’m not sure if the old marriage-market system, for flight attendants and other forms of primarily female employment, is a good one, or the best one. It certainly wouldn’t work in isolation; such things are part of an organic societal whole. The system is of interest, though, as I continue to evaluate what society should look like, instead of what we are told by the Left society should look like, since soon enough their project is going to come to an end, and something is going to replace it. A marriage market seems like a small thing, but relations among the sexes are core to any society, and they need to be based on reality, recognizing different needs and goals, rather than on a false equivalency.

One possible objection is that such a setup oppresses women; we are often pointed to the television series Mad Men as demonstration of how women were oppressed in the 1960s and 1970s. I wasn’t around then, so I don’t know, but we should keep in mind that like all entertainment media today, including such things as computer games, Mad Men is not just entertainment, but also skillful leftist propaganda, in this case coated with a thick layer of apparent realism to give it verisimilitude. As with most stories of oppression (the sole exception being African Americans), the idea that women have been systematically oppressed by men throughout history, at least for the past two thousand years under Christian systems, is a total falsehood, so I suspect that in reality the 1960s system served women quite well.

What does the history of science and the roles of flight attendants have to do with Mark Miodownik’s book? Not much, I have to admit. But then, much of Miodownik’s book doesn’t have much to do with liquids. Still, I think I am just particularly curmudgeonly today. I have at least ten books to review, along with a very long piece on Francisco Franco and the Spanish Civil War to complete. That’s my excuse. Nonetheless, being curmudgeonly doesn’t mean I’m wrong.

[Viktor Stoyanov · Rating 3 out of 5]

3+. Приятна книжка за течностите и техните свойства.

Авторът изглежда е опитен, или по-коректно казано - професионален разказвач. Личи си, че това е професията му, свързана с преподаване, лекции, събития, книги и като цяло storyteling. Има и какво интересно да ни разкаже в света на популярната наука.

Още от корицата може да се ориентирате за повечето субстанции, за които ще стане дума в книгата. Форматът е последователни разкази по време на едно пътуване със самолет. Пример: Вижда си бутилката с вода в самолета - сеща се колко е различна от водата в океаните, над която прелитат, разказва за нея, как се образуват цунамитата, после за последните световноизвестни цунамита, които ни се случиха - Фукушима н.пр., после за някои от химичните и физичните процеси в ядрените централи и тнт. и тнт. В този смисъл, книгата не е конструирана като типично научно-популярно четиво, а по описания току-що маниер.

Оценката ми не е много повече от средна, защото като цяло не придобих нови знания и идеи от нея. Просто едно приятно пътуване със самолет - мога да я препоръчам именно за пътуване със самолет, или влак, когато наблюдавате преминаващия свят и сте склонни да четете (или слушате) разказа на един учен за него.

Може би, най-интересно ми беше за мастилото - от първите открити пещерни рисунки, до модерния химикал. Макар и тук да нямаше кой знае какви изненади.

[J.J. Garza · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un bonito repaso a mi curso de química orgánica (y no tan orgánica) de la preparatoria. La verdad, si me hicieren examen mañana sobre todo el libro no creo que pudiere pasarlo, porque en serio es mucha información. Pero es verdaderamente interesante y me recordó y enseñó muchas cosas sobre hidrocarburos, alcoholes, adhesivos, fluidos corporales, surfactantes, pantallas de cristal líquido, colorantes, química del agua y muchas cosas más.

[Vasilisa Ashurkova · Rating 3 out of 5]

look there is nothing wrong with this book i just think there’s so much weird waffle at parts (which makes sense as it allows the book to be more readable for someone not super into material sciences and chemistry) and some parts can be a bit rambly with tangents that seem to have nothing to do with the rest of the chapter.
other than that it’s very informative (loved detailed and completely irrelevant deep dive into how mark likes to brew his tea and coffee xx)

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book a lot but I feel I should warn you don't read this book on an airplane. I will write about the reasons below but I will hide it behind a “spoiler” HTML tag, in the highly unlikely case that you are actually reading this review while you are on a airplane.

Flying on an airplane is one of the safest activities you can engage in. Personal experience tells me that it is much safer than, say, crossing a busy intersection in downtown Washington, D.C., where I live, because underpaid and sleep-deprived Uber drivers are not, as of this writing, airborne. Still, when I am on an airplane, I find it profitable not to think too closely about what I am doing, as the whole experience is already trying enough without working myself into a lather about things that probably won't happen, or conjuring up an image like “hurtling in a tin can through a frozen black void”.

The extended conceit of this book is that the author is taking a long airplane trip from London to San Francisco. During his trip, he ponders the wonders and histories of various liquids, often in connection with events he is seeing and hearing in flight. Although this may sound odd, I thought it worked. However, if you are on an airplane while you are reading, you may not wish to be reminded (as this book does, in the first chapter) that there are 10,000 gallons of highly combustible liquid underneath your seat, and 10,000 more in each of the wings. Again, airplane travel is very safe, and so is the highly combustible liquid (as the author demonstrates) but the image is not pleasant to think about as you are trundling down the runway.

Knowing this, you might think: “OK, I'll just skip the first chapter”, but wait there's more disturbing information. Not much later, we are informed that the wings of an airplane are held together with glue, which I admit took me by surprise. I know that the glue used on an airplane wing is a miracle of modern chemical engineering and is not like the white stuff that inadequately-socialized children eat in preschool. But still, it's disturbing to think at length about glue holding your plane together. I mean, I just always assumed wings were attached by a reassuringly big bunch of steel rivets or something.

After THAT, the author mentions that the packaged salad dressing that came with his in-flight meal disgusted him, which leads to a mention of saliva, which leads to a chapter on the admirable chemical properties of this surprisingly-complex human-made liquid. I am always up for a discussion of the miraculous qualities of common everyday things, but I admit I had to put the part about saliva aside while I was eating. If you are on an airplane, you may find the in-flight meal difficult enough to stomach without actually reading about the properties of digestive juices at the same time.

The second half of the book contains information that can be read in-flight with significant loss of sang froid. You will learn a lot of stuff about things you have been using without thinking about, like soap and ballpoint pens. You will be able to answer questions that I find interesting, although some might not. Those questions include:
– What exactly is a vinaigrette? (Kindle location 1735)
– Why does ketchup stubbornly remain in the bottle, even defying gravity, until you whack the bottom of the bottle with your hand, at which time it will shoot out of the bottle and make a mess? (l. 2283)
– Why is there a holiday called “Inventor's Day” on September 29 in Argentina? (l. 2327)
– On average, how many lightning flashes are there per second all over the world? (l. 2352)
– “[W]hy are clouds white?” (l. 2622)
This last one seems like it would be especially useful to know if you found yourself inescapably in the company of a precocious child.

I read the author's previous book, on the material science of solids. I retained the impression that the author's explanations were clear and enjoyable, but the actual explanations themselves have slipped, liquid-like, out of my brain. For example, I'm pretty sure that I understood, for a brief shining moment, why cement, although it starts out as a liquid, doesn't get all soggy and mushy again once you hold it underwater, like a paper towel. I'm sad that I don't remember that, but at least I know where to go if I ever really need to know. The same with many of the explanations in this book, so please don't ask me a year from now why clouds are white.

[Wesley · Rating 2 out of 5]

If this were marketed as a book our interaction with materials in our daily lives, I would have enjoyed it much more. However, it was marketed as a book about liquid and it spent more time talking about decidedly non-liquid things than it did about liquid. A lot of the information was interesting. The contrived and constrained tying of the information to a flight was jarring and forced. Overall I really wanted to like this book but it just felt like it was trying too hard to be something other than what it was. Which is a shame because what it was (a book about materials) was pretty good.

[Camelia Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

Miodownik is my new favorite science writer. I enjoyed reading this popular science book. A lot of interesting liquid facts, from kerosene, tar, ink (and pen), wine, cloud (rain) to tea and coffee, to research on self-repairing roads and liquid computers. Each piece is well-written and humous. The last chapter touches climate change.

Highly recommended. Suitable for adults and children 12+.

[Konrad Śmiałek · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Ryan Mishap · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love me some general science books talking about sciency things from astrophysics to everyday items, and this is a decent entry into the latter genre. While information wise this was enjoyable, I found the frame of the book--his airplane ride from the UK to San Francisco--annoying and superfluous. I didn't care for his persona while on the plane and his interactions with "Susan."

I would have rather just read about the liquids without the froo-fro-all.

[Natalie (CuriousReader) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Liquid Rules is a historical and informative journey into a select number of liquids that govern our lives on planet Earth. The book is structured around one single plane-journey, and various liquids that can be found there – water, alcohol, soap, etc.; all which are given the focused attention of a chapter or so as Mark Miodownik explores the particularities in the liquid type and some of the things that makes it ‘tick’, all the while painting a broader picture of what liquids as a form really are – how they behave, how they differ from gas or solids, how they can be useful and at the same time dangerous, depending on the situation. With wit, and of a mind clearly fascinated by the dualities and contradictions of the form – Miodownik interweaves some personal anecdotes, groundbreaking discoveries, fascinating stories and useful information to the reader interested in learning more about the world all around us, which we are always seeing but as Holmes would say – not always observing, and makes us consider anew some of the substances we take for granted, or question how we expect them to behave.

Full Review: https://curiousreaderr.wordpress.com/...

Thanks to the publisher for granting me a netgalley of this book!

[The Captain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ahoy there mateys! This book is about liquids and is frickin’ fascinating. The First Mate and I both read his amazing book stuff matters and so we listened to this follow up book together. We would stop after each chapter and discuss. It was fun. Favourites in this book include learning about ink, liquid soap, oceans, and the effect of glaciers on tectonic plates. Seriously both books are must reads. I want another book asap. Arrrr!

Side note: Michael Page is seriously an awesome narrator.

[Pongsak Sarapukdee · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Liquid Rules" is quite similar to "Stuff Matters," which tells the various materials around us in general life. But, this book gives the materials in only fluid things.
Moreover, he made the story to take us to travel with him on a plane from London to San Francisco, and the liquids that were picked to explain are around him on that flight.

If you like Stuff Matters, you going to love this book.

[Smjohns78 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really just a bunch of random facts about liquids tied together in a narrative, but I could not put it down.

[Angie Boyter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mark Miodownik is Professor of Materials and Society at the University College London. He studies the properties of matter and their applications to various areas of science and engineering. His first book for a general audience, Stuff Matters, so fascinated me that I wanted to go back and reread it as soon as I had finished it! In Liquid Rules Miodownik continues his exploration of one important type of material, liquids.
Before he discusses specific liquids, like a good scientist he defines his terms. Just what makes something a liquid? Is peanut butter a liquid? Yes, he says, and so does TSA in American airports! ( In layman’s terms, liquids are just things that assume the shape of their container.) After the introduction, each chapter talks about a different type of liquid, specifically the liquids he encounters on a transatlantic plane trip: Explosive (jet fuel), Intoxicating (alcohol), Sticky (glue), etc. There is a LOT of science, including diagrams of molecular structure (There were some passages where my eyes glazed over a bit.), but also history, little-known information like the fact that George Orwell, in addition to writing about dystopias in 1984 and Animal Farm, wrote about how to approach utopia by publishing eleven rules for making the perfect cup of tea, and just fun tales, like Miodinow’s account of his experience getting VERY close to an active volcano or Professor Thomas Parnell of the University of Queensland, who studied what happens if you dump a bunch of tar into a funnel and let it sit for more than 80 years.
While Miodownik is explaining the properties of various liquids, he naturally talks about how they are used. I confess that I never thought about how wings are attached to airplanes, and I was more than a little disconcerted to learn that they are GLUED on…until Miodownik described the nature of glues and put my mind at rest. Well, mostly at rest.
Some of the liquids he chooses to tell us about are fairly obvious choices, like the jet fuel; others are more idiosyncratic. I was especially intrigued by the discussion of saliva in the chapter Visceral. Saliva is certainly not something that we think about very often, but it plays a big role in our everyday lives, as Mlodinow engagingly explains. I confess I never realized quite all the good things saliva does for me, and I am once again amazed and grateful for the wonder that is my body. Given his intimate acquaintance with saliva and everything it can do for our gustatory pleasures, I guess I should not have been surprised by his rapturous description of just what a good cup of tea should taste like or be surprised by his cogently argued case for why you should order coffee rather than tea if you are in an economy-class seat on a plane.
Any reader interested in the world around them will find delights in this book, but it will be of most interest to those who can remember a fair bit from their chemistry classes in high school or, better yet, college. Others may need to skip a few paragraphs here and there and move on. So just relax and go with the flow; after all, that is what liquids do!
NOTE: I received an advance review copy of this book from Edelweiss and the publisher.

[Kaj · Rating 2 out of 5]

You might think that “Liquid Rules” is about the science of liquids. Don’t be fooled. It’s actually one long kinda cringy story about Mark Miodownik’s flying experience, with some chemistry asides.

I loved Miodownik’s previous book, “Stuff Matters,” where he explains how the big properties of everyday materials come from their chemical structure. Why are alloys sometimes stronger than the metals they’re made from? What does it mean to be conductive? Miodownik keeps his explanations simple and mechanistic, aided by small hand-drawn doodles. Unlike many other pop sci books, “Stuff Matters” never falls into the trap of focusing too much on what is important to know, rather than what’s interesting and informative. The info:tainment ratio is good- accessible enough for high school level students while still interesting for scientists. Sure, he sprinkles in some occasionally boring personal anecdotes, but every materials chem book would benefit from a few breathers.

“Liquid Rules” doubles down on the bad parts of “Stuff Matters” while forgetting what made it great. Each chapter focuses on a different liquid. A major part of the book is trying to relate each liquid to something that happens on a single trans-Atlantic flight. This plot device seems to be an attempt to make the liquid chemistry seem useful by relating it to real-world phenomena, but the cumulative effect is the opposite. Too much time spent on why these chemicals are important, and not enough on why they’re interesting, mixed with long personal anecdotes and scientist biographies that are neither important nor interesting. For a book about fluids, “Liquid Rules” is just a little bit too dry.

[Raluca · Rating 3 out of 5]

I adored Stuff Matters, absolutely adored it, and recommended it to everyone. So when I heard the sequel was coming, I was delighted.
Unfortunately, Liquid Rules falls well short of Miodownik's first. Still interesting and enjoyable, don't get me wrong, but somehow... scattered, jumpy, lacking the riotous creativity and variety and joy of Stuff Matters. The author uses a framing device again, but where the repeating picture in Stuff Matters was a simple and cute basis for looking at various solids, the story of a flight in Liquid Rules feels hamfisted and overemphasizes - do we really need a detailed account of your seatmate's outfit and facial expressions?
Giving it 3 stars as a partially justified punishment. Had I read this one first, it might have been a slightly generous 4, but as it is, it doesn't hold a candle to its predecessor and it kind of broke my heart.

(Did not fit into the PopSugar Reading Challenge 2020)

[Barry · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little chemistry, a little physics, a lot of fun. Like his previous book, “Stuff Matters,” this is both entertaining and informative.