From "THE CANON" Maybe you're one of those people who hasn't clicked with science since that dreadful year of high school when you flunked physics because you showed up for the final exam an hour late, in your pajamas, and carrying an insect collection. Or maybe you fulfilled your college science requirements by taking courses like the Evolutionary Psychology of InternetDating, and you regret that you still can't tell the difference between a proton, a photon, and a moron. Or maybe you're just curiouser and curiouser and you don't know where to start. You think that the beginning might be a reasonable place, but whose beginning? Not the kiddie beginning, not the contemptuous or embarrassing or didactic digit-wagging beginning, but the beginning as an adult. The beginning as a relationship between equals, you and science. And before you raise your hands defensively, and cry, Whoa, that's not a fair competition, me versus science, let me say, It's not you against science, but you with science, you the taxpayer who supports science whether you realize it or not, you the person who does science more often than you'd suspect. Every time you try to isolate a problem with the vacuum cleaner, for example--machine heats up; machine stops running; holy hairball, when was the last timeyou changed the bag in this thing, anyway? Or when you know that if you don't stir the hollandaise sauce constantly at a hot but not boiling temperature you'll end up with a mass too lumpy to pour over your asparagus. You do science, you support science, you're baking the cake, you may as well lick the spoon. Excerpted from The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science by Natalie Angier All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
