Are you the innovative type, the cook who marches to a different drummer -- used to expressing your creativity instead of just following recipes? Are you interested in the science behind what happens to food while it's cooking? Do you want to learn what makes a recipe work so you can improvise and create your own unique dish?
More than just a cookbook, Cooking for Geeks applies your curiosity to discovery, inspiration, and invention in the kitchen. Why is medium-rare steak so popular? Why do we bake some things at 350 F/175 C and others at 375 F/190 C? And how quickly does a pizza cook if we overclock an oven to 1,000 F/540 C? Author and cooking geek Jeff Potter provides the answers and offers a unique take on recipes -- from the sweet (a "mean" chocolate chip cookie) to the savory (duck confit sugo).
This book is an excellent and intriguing resource for anyone who wants to experiment with cooking, even if you don't consider yourself a geek.
Initialize your kitchen and calibrate your tools
Learn about the important reactions in cooking, such as protein denaturation, Maillard reactions, and caramelization, and how they impact the foods we cook
Play with your food using hydrocolloids and sous vide cooking
Gain firsthand insights from interviews with researchers, food scientists, knife experts, chefs, writers, and more, including author Harold McGee, TV personality Adam Savage, chemist Hervé This, and xkcd

本书是“汉译大众精品文库”的一种。本书是一部全面介绍人类以科学的方法为工具，努力探索宇宙奥秘的科普著作。其内容涵盖了物理科学、生物科学及各个分支的发展状况和所取得的成就，阐述了各门学科之间的相互渗透和交叉。 本书作者阿西莫夫早在本世纪50年代就以创作撰写科幻小说和科普读物而蜚声文坛。他那非凡的驾驭语言和概念的能力，不断对虚构世界和真实世界的新探索，以及他所取得的成就和名望，为他的作品赢得了广大的读

Science starts to get interesting when things don’t make sense.

Science’s best-kept secret is this: Even today, there are experimental results and reliable data that the most brilliant scientists can neither explain nor dismiss. In the past, similar “anomalies” have revolutionized our world, like in the sixteenth century, when a set of celestial anomalies led Copernicus to realize that the Earth goes around the sun and not the reverse, and in the 1770s, when two chemists discovered oxygen because of experimental results that defied all the theories of the day. And so, if history is any precedent, we should look to today’s inexplicable results to forecast the future of science. In 13 Things That Don’t Make Sense , Michael Brooks heads to the scientific frontier to meet thirteen modern-day anomalies and discover tomorrow’s breakthroughs.
13 Things opens at the twenty-third Solvay physics conference, where the scientists present are ready to throw up their hands over an anomaly: is it possible that the universe, rather than slowly drifting apart as the physics of the big bang had once predicted, is actually expanding at an ever-faster speed? From Solvay and the mysteries of the universe, Brooks travels to a basement in Turin to subject himself to repeated shocks in a test of the placebo response. No study has ever been able to definitively show how the placebo effect works, so why has it becomea pillar ofmedicalscience? Moreover, is 96 percent of the universe missing? Is a 1977 signal from outer space a transmission from an alien civilization? Might giant viruses explain how life began? Why are some NASA satellites speeding up as they get farther from the sun—and what does that mean for the laws of physics?
Spanning disciplines from biology to cosmology, chemistry to psychology to physics, Brooks thrillingly captures the excitement, messiness, and controversy of the battle over where science is headed. “In science,” he writes, “being stuck can be a sign that you are about to make a great leap forward. The things that don’t make sense are, in some ways, the only things that matter.”

如何去观察水的万种风情？如何去观赏水结晶的喜怒哀乐？如何领悟并陶醉在水结晶所蕴含的对生命的感谢和热爱？该书独辟蹊径，从另一个侧面向人们展示了科学研究的魅力，拓展了人类既成视野，从而一个瑰丽并新奇的世界也显现在眼前。 122幅震惊世界的水结晶照片，令人难以置信的科学观察，这是一本与《时间简史》同样神奇的书！畅销日韩，轰动欧美！

This book challenges the perception of chemistry as too difficult to bother with and too clinical to be any for. Cathy Cobb and Monty L Fetterolf, both professional chemists and experienced educators, introduce readers to the magic, elegance, and, yes, joy of chemistry. From the fascination of fall foliage and fireworks, to the functioning of smoke detectors and computers, to the fundamentals of digestion (as when good pizza goes bad!), the authors illustrate the concepts of chemistry in terms of everyday experience, using familiar materials. The authors begin with a bangs colourful bottle rocket assembled from common objects you find in the garage - and then present the principles of chemistry using household chemicals and friendly, non-technical language. They guide the reader through the basics of atomic structure, the nature of molecular bonds, and the vibrant universe of chemical reactions. Using analogy and example to illuminate essential concepts such as thermodynamics, photochemistry, electrochemistry, and chemical equilibrium, they explain the whys and wherefores of chemical reactions. Hands-on demonstrations, selected for their ease of execution and relevance, illustrate basic principles, and lively commentaries emphasise the fun and fascination of learning about chemistry. This delightful and richly informative book amply proves that chemistry can appeal to our intuition, logic, and - if we are willing to get down and dirty - our sense of enjoyment too.