Contents of What Einstein Didn’t Know

CHAPTER ONE: In the Marketplace

Exposés of commercial products, including:
Are there iron filings in your cereal?
How do those instant cold compresses work?
How do distillers manipulate the percentage of alcohol in a beverage?
What is Jell-O made of?
Why is dry ice and dry cleaning not dry?
How is a consumer to choose among all those newfangled light bulbs?
What constitutes a perfect cup of espresso?
What makes Super Glue so… super?

CHAPTER TWO: In the Kitchen

Answers to questions about foods and cooking, including:
Can you make boiling water hotter by turning up the heat?
Does salted water cook pasta faster?
How does a simmer differ from a slow boil?
How come you can melt sugar on the stove, but not salt?
How do they know how many calories there are in a food?
Can you dissolve two cups of sugar in one cup of water?
What are the nutritionally essential minerals?
What’s the best way to cook broccoli?
Why is your toaster lying to you?

CHAPTER THREE: Around the House

Explanations of everyday household mysteries, including:
How does soap know what’s dirt?
Why don’t solids actually burn?
How does laundry bleach tell white from colors?
Why do soda and beer go flat?
How can the same thermos container keep hot things hot and cold things cold?
Why do waterbeds need heaters?
How do batteries make electricity, and why do they die?
Why won’t your shower temperature stay the way you set it?
Why is it so hard to find an object you’ve just dropped on the floor?
Is the five-second rule valid?

CHAPTER FOUR:The Infernal Combustion Engine

Solutions to automotive puzzles, including:
Does your garage floor suck the “juice” out of your battery?
Why does straight antifreeze freese faster than a fifty-fifty mixture with water?
How does steel rust?
Why won’t sand provide traction for your tires on ice?
Does salt really melt ice?
Why won’t oil and water mix?
Why is oil such a good lubricant?
How does carbon monoxide kill?
Why is the air from my tires so cold?

CHAPTER FIVE: The Great Outdoors

Earth, sun, and air, including:
Why is there always a cool breeze at the seashore?
Why do ocean waves always roll in parallel to the shoreline?
Why is the sun hotter at noon?
Why is the winter (in the northern hemisphere) colder than the summer?
Why can we see through air?
Why is the barometric pressure measured in inches?
How can you tell the temperature by listening to a cricket?
How does the greenhouse effect work?
Why is the Statue of Liberty green?
What eventually happens to a helium-filled balloon after you let it go outdoors?

CHAPTER SIX: Water, Water Everywhere

Quirks if this astonishing liquid including:
Why does evaporation have a cooling effect?
How can a 100,000-ton aircraft carrier float on water?
Can fish get the bends?
Why are bubbles round?
Are all liquids wet?
Can hot water freeze faster than cold water?
Why does ice float?
Why does water put out fires?
What does it mean that water “seeks its own level”?
Why is ice slippery?

CHAPTER SEVEN: …and That’s the Way it Is

The laws of nature, How the Universe operates, including:
What does E=mc2 mean to you?
Where did uranium get its energy?
Why do magnets attract iron?
If all the atoms and molecules in the world are moving, how did they get started, and why don’t they run down?
Why are the Earth, moon and sun all spinning?
What does DNA actually do?
Can we recycle energy?
Why on earth won’t the United States adopt the International System of Measurement?
Is there some universal rule that determines what is possible and what is impossible?