There are questions that we may have asked ourselves when we were children and then we left out, without having found an answer. Questions like: “Why is the glass transparent and the wall not? And why are soap bubbles spherical and not, like, pyramidal? Or, again, how does a simple straw work? Or how slime is made and how many times can you fold a sheet of paper?”. Certainly these are not questions related to the meaning of life, but they show us how the world around us, starting with the objects and materials (even the most banal!) with which we deal every day, hide stories and secrets that are just waiting to be be revealed.
Devis Bellucci , now a researcher in materials science and technology at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia , reveals many of these secrets and stories to us in his "Why the fork doesn't know anything" (Rizzoli, 2022, pp. 160) . Indeed, Bellucci guides us like an explorer on a journey inside the house, room by room, answering the most absurd doubts without using formulas or big words, but with simple explanations and easy examples that help to understand, "in practice", because things are the way they are.
So let's ask Bellucci how this book of his was born, full of curiosities and small daily discoveries:
«It all started during the lockdown. At the time I was teaching in a school and teaching the kids remotely, as happened to almost everyone at that time. Boys and girls were gathered around the screen and our world at that moment was the house where each of us lived. To involve them in the lesson, I tried to intrigue them with stories, anecdotes and curiosities about the objects and technologies found in their rooms. Added to this is a personal predisposition to explain physics starting from questions».
Explain to us better…
«You see, I have often found myself in front of well-prepared young people who had studied science for years, but they didn't know how to answer questions like: 'Why is the sky blue?'. In reality they had the notions to answer. They couldn't do it because they weren't used to bringing their knowledge into everyday life".
So go ahead for questions?
"Exactly. I've gotten used to starting from questions to arrive at scientific explanations and my students have gotten used to asking me all kinds of questions. Also curious questions, such as: 'Can a lightsaber be built? You can build the perpetual motion machine." Many of these questions then flowed into the book, along with my explanations and the story behind every discovery and innovation. In fact, I believe it is important to make people understand that behind every technology and every advance there is a long journey made up of studies, mistakes, second thoughts».
Are sciences taught adequately in school?
«They are taught too often in a purely theoretical way. More space would be needed for practice, for laboratory work, while avoiding that students consider the hours spent doing experiments as a simple moment of leisure, a lightening compared to the classic lesson. The laboratory is an integral part of the study of certain subjects».
Did you also learn something new thanks to the questions of your students?
«Oh, yes… sometimes I didn't remember the answer or I simply didn't know it and I had to read up on it. For example, they asked me why aluminum foil has a dull side and a shiny side, how they are different and which side should be used. I couldn't answer at the time. I went looking and discovered that the answer is due to the particular process with which this paper is produced, as you can read in my book».
How did you manage to explain sometimes quite complex questions in a simple way, such as how a microwave works or why the induction hob doesn't burn?
«It wasn't easy, in fact, especially when it came to giving explanations related to the world of electronics. I hope I succeeded even if it is not trivial to simplify why a computer needs certain components to function or how a microprocessor operates».
Were there any questions you couldn't answer?
«In the end, I managed to find an answer to all the questions they asked me, also making some curious discoveries, such as the reason why the shower curtain sticks easily to the body. Let me clarify right away that the heat of the water and the vapor that is formed have nothing to do with it, because the phenomenon occurs even if you take a cold shower. In answering this question, the American professor David Schmidt won the IgNobel prize for physics in 2001 It's the ironic version of the Nobel prize that is awarded for the most bizarre and useless research, like studying how fast a tornado needs to go to pluck a chicken!"
The answer to the question in the title of the book: why don't forks taste of anything?
«Why the cutlery because they are made of stainless steel. Stainless steel has a very thin and practically invisible protective layer of chromium oxide on the surface. When we put cutlery in our mouth we come into contact with chromium oxide which basically has no taste. It would be different to put an iron or copper fork in your mouth... in that case we would really feel the taste».