Your kitchen is the best-equipped physics lab you will ever own, and nobody told you.

Blue flame is hotter than yellow, and the colour tells you exactly why. Toast lands butter-side down because of the height of your table, not because of luck. Your microwave cooks in stripes. Salt does raise the boiling point of water, by about a tenth of a degree, which is why every argument about it is wrong.

The Everyday Physics Handbook collects 200 facts about the science hiding in ordinary kitchen moments, from the flame under the pan to the ice in the freezer to the coffee ring drying on the counter. Each one explains the mechanism in the amount of detail that actually answers the question, with no equations and no lecture.

Inside you will find:

• Why steam burns far worse than boiling water


• How a fridge moves heat instead of making cold


• Why a knife goes blunt by bending, not by wearing away


• What really makes ice slippery, and why the school answer is wrong


• How to measure the speed of light using a chocolate bar

Ten illustrated sections. Two hundred facts. Read it front to back or open it anywhere.

Warning: after this book you will not be able to watch a pot of pasta without narrating it.