Customer Reviews

The Physics of Christmas: From the Aerodynamics of Reindeer to the Thermodynamics of Turkey

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a wonderful gift book, even better to own (but it is clearly a seasonal read). The author is a scientist of wonderfully broad knowledge, and he puts all of it to work to examine and evaluate virtually all of the things that mean "Christmas" to the western world: from formulae for estimating the cooking time for a plum pudding, to the history and derivation of Santa, to why evergreens stay green, and beyond. Did you know, for example, that there are serious efforts to clone Christmas trees? Or that Santa's reindeer would only have had antlers at Christmas time if they were female, or castrated? The title is a little bit misleading - it is really the various sciences of Christmas, not limited to physics. This is a book for adults or teens - dense with information and fun. There is a wonderful bibliography, too, for further reading on specific subjects, and a helpful index. My only complaint is Rudolph's battery-powered blinking nose built into the hard cover, which not only raises the price of the book but results in a poor quality binding that is not durable. This book should be a "keeper", but the eccentric binding probably limits its life span. That is a shame.

The title is a bit misleading. This book is light on the physics while covering many other disciplines, including history, anthropology, sociology, psychology, chemistry (the author is a chemist), biology, and physiology. However, the broad range of topics keeps the reader's interest. The author was also able to keep everything on such a level that a reader with a minimal background in science can appreciate the book.

The Physics of Christmas is a collection of short, bright essays that attempt to explain by means of science - not only physics, but very broadly defined to include anthropology, psychology and sociology as well chemistry and biology - all the wacky things people do during the holidays. No subject is too small for Highfield's enthusiastic scrutiny. He devotes one essay to the reasons Brussels sprouts are bitter; another to the architecture of snowflakes; yet another to the biology of reindeer.

Sampled in small doses, these essays can be fascinating. You may have some dim notion that Santa Claus harks back to St. Nicholas, a holy man from the coast of Turkey. It is less well known that some academics posit that his suit is red because people liked to ingest psychedelic toadstools - "the recreational and ritualistic drug of choice in parts of northern Europe before vodka was imported from the East." Santa's vivid robes, Highfield writes, are thought by some to "honor the red-and-white dot color scheme of this potent mind-altering mushroom." It will be a long time before I forget that the Lapps of northern Scandinavia - who pulverize reindeer horns and market the stuff as an aphrodisiac - actually have a genetic mutation rendering some of the men "unusually virile." Or that a cancer research organization has found that Christmas is the only meal of the year at which most British children eat sufficient amounts of vegetables.

But read more than one or two of Highfield's pieces at a time, and you may find yourself reaching anxiously for another egg nog. Highfield is an engaging writer, with an obvious and endearing passion for his subject. But what he has assembled in this pretty volume is an intimidating mountain of random scientific trivia. Taken as a whole, it is more exhausting than explanatory. Like Christmas cheer - "the fermentation of fruit and grain by the activity of fungi called yeasts" - The Physics of Christmas is enjoyable and delightful science for adults and teens.

Bought this book for my husband & he loves it. So I bought a few more for presents for other people. Not deep "boring" science, but good for those who lean a bit that way in their interests.

For those who believe curiosity killed the cat, this book proves such cliches to be incorrect. Dr. Highfield has done well to organize the massive amounts of research in sociology, psychology, chemistry, physics etc. in such a way as to explain much of the mysteries and associations of the holidays. Despite such "debunking", Highfield somehow manages to retain much of the mystery and joy of Christmas in his writing, which balances humor and academic rigor nicely. This is a must read for the perpetually curious, and holiday revelers of all sorts.

When you first pick up this book, you think, oh welll this is going to be time wasted. Fortunately, this feeling dispels as soon as your a few pages in. This book deals with many aspects of Christmas in scientific terms. It examines many things from rudolph to how Santa delivers all his presents. I believe that this is a perfect book for anyone with any interest in science and with the interest to get to the bottom of Christmas.

Its magical and everyone should own a copy.

If you are one of those people who has to ask "Why" about everything then you will find this a fascinating book. It is indeed centered around Christmas and all the traditions and expectations of that season, but it is much more than another historical or anthropological book about the holiday. It does have a lot of historical information and makes a fascinating read just for that fact. But in addition it has scientific information from many disciples that just builds more fascination into the subject.
Each chapter stands alone and so you can pick one that sounds interesting and read it. Each deals with a different aspect of the season and so does not build on a previous chapter. Read it in the order of your interests. Chapters cover such areas as Santa, reindeer, Christmas trees, food, snow and seasonal moods.
The writing style is easy flowing and fun to read. You don't need to know anything about physics, or any other science for that matter, to follow and understand the book. It is a unique style of writing because the book is easy and fun to read like a novel and yet packed so full of information that it is more like a science book. So, which is it? I'm not sure, but if regular science books were this interesting and fun instead of full of dry examples then perhaps science scores in schools would climb.

about one horse open sleighs!
This is a great little volume for those in love with Christmas - and with science. It isn't intended for scholarly pursuits, but for some good, fun reading.

The Physics of Christmas by Roger Highfield.

This book starts off as a fascinating read into the history of Christmas, discussing things which most people have never considered, that Santa Claus was the Amanita muscaria mushroom, and the reindeer fly because of eating the mushrooms. This has been verified by many researches today including Patrick Harding of Sheffield, James Bursenos, James Arthur, Rogan Tyler and others. It's a great reference in regard to the history of Christmas and whom developed which Christmas icon when.

Unfortunately, Highfield, around page 109 at the start of Ch. 6, takes us on a detour of obesity, proper diet, genes, DNA, etc., using this as an opportunity to talk about this philosophy of diet for the next 20 pages, forgetting that he already stated Santa Claus is the mushroom, and "obesity" would then obviously be due to the mushroom's round shape. Never mind this detail. We're taken away on an excursion only indirectly related to the Christmas theme. It was also around this point that I noticed that the book also tends to repeat itself, and topics out of order, going back to things two or three times to talk about them with different concepts, while seeming to ignore those already discussed.

For the first 108 pages, the book was grippingly fascinating. Then on page 126 it happens. Highfield throws all logic out the window and takes us on a slide down the slippery path of literalism. At this point I was expecting him to say something juxtaposed to what he had already stated about Santa Claus and say that the man really did fly in a sleigh pulled by reindeer with a bag of toys.

I'll help Mr. Highfield for his search of the star Bethlehem here:

There were 7 planets, not including the earth, which was thought to be the center of the universe. The planets were Mercury, Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, the Moon and the Sun. The sun was placed as the head of the sky god's penis, and Saturn, the highest planet, the "Most High God". He was called El, or Yahweh. All of the planets are depicted as their god names in our names of the days of the week.

Sonne's day (Sun-day) is Sunday; Mond's day (Moon-day) is Monday (Spanish: Lunes); Tiu's day (Mars) is Tuesday; Woden's Day (Mercury) is Wednesday; Thor's day (Jupiter) is Thursday; Freya's day (Venus) is Friday; and Saturn's day is Saturday, the Sabbath. This is where our names for the days of the week came from.

Jesus was the sun in the sky, worshiped on "sun-day" who is born annually on Dec. 25. He dies and is resurrected on the celestial cross, which is the cross of the solstices and equinoxes. Dec. 21/22 is the Winter Solstice (and the first day of winter), this is the shortest day of the year. Above the 66.5 degree latitude, the sun actually DISAPPEARS for three days...completely. Though it is still light outside. The sun dies, or does not change in degrees for three days, from Dec. 21 to Dec. 25, here, god's SUN is "in a tomb" (the chthonic realm/under world), from which he resurrects. The SUN is born of the VIRGIN called VIRGO on Dec. 25. The Three wise-men (the Belt of Orion) form the path to the star Sirius (Bethlehem). At midnight Virgo sticks her head over the horizon. Several hours later she steps on the head of the serpent (the constellation Serpens) with her right foot. Shortly after, the SUN, GOD's LIGHT and saving grace is born between her legs. We are "saved" for another year... the sun again begins heading north 1 degree each day for the next six months, saving us from the darkest, coldest time of year.

At the end of winter, we celebrate the return of GOD's sun by celebrating EAST STAR (Easter) fertility worship. The goddess Ishtar/Astarte, from which Easter is derived, was the fertility/star goddess celebrated at the death of winter, at the first day of Spring (= life, springs back to life), March 20/21. How do we know when to celebrate EAST-STAR SUN-Rise services on which Sun-Day? We wait for the vernal equinox, then wait for the next Pascal full moon, then we celebrate East Star Sun Rise on the following SUN-day. This day happens to be approx 9 months before the next BIRTH of the sun on the following Dec. 25.

For ancient people, this was a method of tracking time. Today we use clocks and caledars. Ancient times used the sky. To not know these very basic principles of the facts of our cosmos meant certain death. If you didn't understand these things, you didn't know when to plant, harvest, store, etc. It was survival to know this information or you DIED.

Some place along the path of history, some devious and deceitful people got the idea to MURDER people who refused to take the story as literal history. Eventually, all of the people who understood the astronomical truth of the story were killed. This time was called the Inquisition. Everyone who questioned the Church was murdered. Every time the Churched murdered, they got richer by acquiring the property of the "heretic". It was a win, win for the Church.

At this point the book got so thick that I just scanned it and jumped ahead to page 155 and read about snow. I put the book down when he began talking about alcoholism and the Christmas spirit (page 186 ch. 9)... I'd already seen how he took that detour on obesity and I'm not a drinker, so I'll skip it. I doubt I'll ever finish the rest of the book, though I do recommend it for reference purposes, and, to look up how to cook a turkey, or make pudding. If for nothing else, buy it just for the first 108 pages... that alone is worth the read.

As a fan of trivia, I found the scientific and historical accounts contained within fascinating. It gives, as a whole, a sort of evolution of Christmas and it's traditions, interesting scientific information, and riduculously unimportant facts that are still a lot of fun to read. Also, the book is wonderful coffee table reading because it is not required, or even recommended, to read it from cover to cover. It is essentially a compendum of interesting essays, and a good buy.