![]() ![]() It doesn’t mean you have to be an expert on weather systems or on double glazing or cars or mattresses or phones, but if you know the basics it gives you the confidence to ask the right questions. Whether it’s a politician or a salesman, you need to know the rules they’re playing by. It’s about knowing the rules of the world so you don’t get exploited. Why do people need to know about the physics of everyday life? Isn’t it just good enough to know that things work, like a smartphone? Understanding what’s going on when bubbles form has all sorts of applications, like understanding how oceans breathe or how light and sound travel through oceans. Put a spoon on top of a column of just coffee or just air and it’ll fall through, but whip them both up into a cappuccino and the spoon will rest on top. It gives you something that neither a gas or a liquid can do on its own.Īs the sea ice retreats the Arctic Ocean is more exposed… I’d like to go and study the bubbles underneath breaking waves This business of having two phases together – a liquid and a gas interacting – is such a useful thing. They’re in champagne, they’re used in medicine, they’re in the ocean – they’re the unsung heroes of the physical world. But scientifically they’re also fascinating. Bubbles are like the dolphins of the physics world, right? They make people happy. Yeah, nobody quite knows what to make of it when I tell them, but they’re always interested. Sitting at her kitchen table, just returned from a morning coaching session and still wearing her racket club’s black and red polo shirt, she laughs as the Observer opens with the obvious question… She has just finished her first book, Storm in a Teacup: The Physics of Everyday Life, and if that’s not enough she also plays badminton competitively. When she’s not doing that, you’ve probably seen her on telly as a science presenter for the BBC. Or, to give her her full title, she’s a physicist and oceanographer a t University College London. H elen Czerski has the coolest job in science – she’s a bubble scientist. ![]()
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