Customer Reviews

Why Sh*t Happens: The Science of a Really Bad Day

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About: Bentley goes through a hypothetical very bad day in which the science behind 34 mishaps is explained. Oversleeping, shaving cuts, bad milk, bird poop, skipping CDs, skin burns and hard drive crashes are examples of what's covered (good thing this bad day is hypothetical!)

Some Interesting Things I Learned:

* To remove chewing gum, try peanut butter or mayonnaise (the oils in them help the molecules in the gum slide off whatever they are stuck too). You can also try icing the gum to freeze it, and then break the frozen mass.

* NASA didn't spend millions of dollars to develop a "Space Pen," They bought them from Fisher. Most normal ballpoint pens will work in zero gravity anyway.

* If you eat something very spicy and want to cool down your mouth, drink milk. It's thought that the mix of casein and fat will wash away the capsaicin molecules that give chilies their spice. Milk chocolate and several types of beans and nuts are thought to have a similar effect.

* Cut yourself shaving? Don't dab the cut with a tissue, you'll just keep disrupting your platelets that are trying to heal the area. Instead, apply steady pressure.

* Anti-lock brakes leave dotted skids that look like ======= . Non-anti-lock brakes leave solid line skids.

Pros: Well-written with very interesting and varied topics. Short chapters make for easy pick-up reading.

Cons: No cites, no full bibliography provided. No real sum up, book just sort of ends.

Dr Bentley has crafted a light hearted, easy to read book that takes you through one of the worst days imaginable and then teaches you exactly what the science behind the event is. He details 39 bad events with great humor, which quickly draws you into the idea, and then he follows with a 5 to 10 page discourse on the science behind the event.

Our protagonist, a business man who should have really never left the bed in the morning, Goes through a sequence of events; none of them particularly horrid, but all very annoying. Each event, whether its a bee sting or eating dirt and glass, is used as a launching point for a discussion on such topics as to why the bee stings, how the teeth work, how the digestive system protects you and so on.

There are 39 chapters in the book, each contains a mini lesson. In general, the lessons are:

1) sleeping through the alarm

2) slipping on soap

3) cutting yourself shaving

4) toast on fire

5) exploding liquids

6) milk gone bad

7) wet mp3 player

8) bird droppings

9) forgotten bag

10) skidding on the road

11) diesel instead of gas

12) tripping on the curb

13) chewing gum in hair

14) rain soaked clothing

15) being lost

16) bee sting

17) sticking yourself with superglue

18) electromagnetic interference from phone

19) puncture

20) leaking pens

21) mistaken identity

22) torn clothing

23) opening an e-mail virus

24) jammed finger

25) computer hard disk failure

26) broken finger

27) dropping keys down the drain

28) pulled muscle

29) sparking microwave

30) broken glass

31) stains

32) chile pepper in the eye

33) food on the floor

34) lighning kills the tv

35) burns and blisters

36) scratched cd

37) broken tooth

38) stubbed toe

39) overflowing bath

The chapters are fairly self contained, so reading out of order won't detract. A truly fun read.

This is a neat little book about a really sad dude who has the worst day ever. Each chapter starts with something awful happening to him and then goes into the science behind why or how that happened.

Much of the science is something a person with any analytic background will already know. There is some new stuff, and I really liked the way it was presented.

The overall tone of the book had me thinking of some kind of british special that John Cleese might narrate - like the science behind beauty thing he did with that Hurley woman.

Overall, a very approachable book that explains the logic behind all the stuff that happens, and lets you explain way bad luck.

(*)>

The title promises entertainment in addition to science. What you get is straight science with very little narrative connection and no ending. I've read science popularizations that were much better done.

In spite of its humorous title, this book is really just a collection of 39 short (non-humorous) essays about science in everyday life: what happens if you stick your fork into a toaster (you get electrocuted), why you shouldn't put regular gas into a diesel engine, why soap is slippery, winestains are hard to remove, etc. The chapters are unconnected, and can be browsed in any order.

With this kind of book, a lot of disconnected information is tossed at the reader but there aren't any unifying ideas or themes. You will learn some interesting everyday science facts, although many of the examples are well-known and have been done lots of times before: cooking at altitude, why divers get the bends, how CDs work. To summarize, this is a book that most readers will just browse through quickly, or dip into briefly to pass the time.

Very, very interesting and entertaining! I would suggest it to anyone who is interested in the physics and history behind ordinary stuff that happen to us every day. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to read the book, either! Though you may end up feeling bad for the guy in the book for whom *NOTHING* goes right that day, the book will often bring a smile on your face all throughout!