Science and the City: The Mechanics Behind the Metropolis

by Laurie Winkless

Overview

Cities are a big deal. More people now live in them than don't, and with a growing world population, the urban jungle is only going to get busier in the coming decades. But how often do we stop to think about what makes our cities work?

Cities are built using some of the most creative and revolutionary science and engineering ideas – from steel structures that scrape the sky to glass cables that help us communicate at the speed of light – but most of us are too busy to notice. Science and the City is your guidebook to that hidden world, helping you to uncover some of the remarkable technologies that keep the world's great metropolises moving.

Laurie Winkless takes us around cities in six continents to find out how they're dealing with the challenges of feeding, housing, powering and connecting more people than ever before. In this book, you'll meet urban pioneers from history, along with today's experts in everything from roads to time, and you will uncover the vital role science has played in shaping the city around you. But more than that, by exploring cutting-edge research from labs across the world, you'll build your own vision of the megacity of tomorrow, based on science fact rather than science fiction.

Science and the City is the perfect read for anyone curious about the world they live in.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781472913227
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	08/11/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	613,459
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Laurie Winkless is a physicist and writer, currently based in London. Following a degree at Trinity College Dublin, a placement at NASA's Kennedy Space Centre, and a masters in Space Science at UCL, Laurie worked at the National Physical Laboratory, specialising in materials. Thermoelectric energy harvesting – where heat is captured and converted into electricity – was her bag, and remains a favourite topic of conversation.

Laurie has been communicating science to the public for more than a decade, working with schools and universities, the Royal Society, Forbes, and the Naked Scientists, amongst others. She's given TEDx talks, hung out with astronauts, and appeared in The Times magazine as a leading light in STEM. Science and the City is her first book.

@laurie_winkless
Laurie Winkless is an Irish physicist-turned-science-writer, currently based in New Zealand. After her post-grad, she joined the UK's National Physical Laboratory as a research scientist, where she specialised in functional materials.

She is an experienced science communicator, who loves talking about science in all forms of media. Since leaving the lab, Laurie has worked with scientific organisations, engineering companies, universities, and astronauts, amongst others. Her writing has featured in outlets including Forbes, Wired, Esquire, and The Economist, and her first book, Science and the City, was published by Bloomsbury Sigma in 2016. This was followed by Sticky, her exploration of friction and surface science, in 2021.

Table of Contents

1. Up: The most visible part of a city's skyline is the skyscraper – do you know how they're built?
2. Switch: Sparks will fly - we'll explore the role of electricity, and you'll understand how the grid works
3. Wet: Cities can't survive without water, and they produce a lot of waste. Expect toilet humour!
4. Way: Let's head out on the open road, and explore beautiful bridges and the science of traffic jams
5. Drive: What good is a road without a car? Here we'll talk about everything from tyres to fuel cells
6. Loco: We'll dig our very own tunnel, and you'll discover why 'leaves on the line' cause problems
7. Connect: Cities contain other less obvious networks – food and goods, communications and money
8. City: Spend a day of discovery in an imaginary future city

Editorial Reviews

07/18/2016
In this cheerful addition to the how-things-work genre, physicist and science writer Winkless reminds readers that urban areas are now home to more than half the human race and use an increasing proportion of the Earth’s natural resources, so it behooves people to know how they operate. Winkless enthusiastically delivers eight chapters that combine expert interviews with lucid explanations of city infrastructure (buildings, energy sources, water supply) and transportation (roads, cars, mass transport). Readers will encounter good elucidations of how skyscrapers are built, subways are dug, and sewage is carried off, but Winkless spends more time on the future in which cities must deal with overpopulation, global warming, and resource exhaustion. Tirelessly curious, she turns up an array of dazzling developments in the works, including driverless cars, pollution-free sources of locally generated energy, and an advanced “Internet of Things” in which every device anticipates personal needs. Of course, many of these are laboratory curiosities and likely to remain so. Winkless takes her material seriously, but her aim is accessibility, so her prose is dense with jokes, amusing asides, and cute footnotes befitting a “friendly science guide.” Even readers who aren’t enamored of her style will encounter fascinating information on how cities function and how they might do better. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"Winkless’ behind-the-bustle tour [of the science of cities] also offers abundant facts of General interest . . . [A] packed-with-detail, textual work that will be a hit with both young adult and adult patrons curious about what makes cities tick." - Booklist

"Physicist and materials and energy harvesting specialist Winkless explores the engineering feats that make urban lifestyles possible . . . [She] explains the complexities of the topic in broad terms, making them accessible to general readers." - Library Journal

"In this cheerful addition to the how-things-work genre, physicist and science writer Winkless reminds readers that urban areas are now home to more than half the human race and use an increasing proportion of the Earth’s natural resources, so it behooves people to know how they operate." - Publishers Weekly

"Laurie Winkless aptly describes how cities function on a daily basis in a manner that would be equally accessible to high-school students and practicing engineers." - Science

From the Publisher

07/01/2016
Physicist and materials and energy harvesting specialist Winkless explores the engineering feats that make urban lifestyles possible. The author provides an overview of the underlying science without delving into the technical details. Each chapter title is a single word that considers various essential networks that are critical to urban life. "Up" looks at housing, specifically skyscrapers, while "Switch" examines the electrical grid. Transportation is covered, too: "Way" focuses on infrastructure, "Drive" on cars, and "Loco" on trains. Chapters end with discussions of what the future will bring for these systems. The last chapter visualizes what life will be like in future cities, a view that—according to the author—is not science fantasy but something that can be achieved with today's technology. Winkless explains the complexities of the topic in broad terms, making them accessible to general readers. VERDICT Recommended for advanced middle school and high school readers and laypersons interested in appreciating the miracles of urban living.—Muhammed Hassanali, Shaker Heights, OH

Library Journal