The Science of Spin

What exactly made the earth round? How do boomerangs turn around mid-air? And why do cats always land on their feet? “A basic scientific concept receives long overdue attention” (Kirkus Reviews) in this “fascinating” (Wall Street Journal) new book from the masterful author of The Age of Wood.

From the solar system to spinning tops, hurricanes to hula hoops, power plants to pendulums, one mysterious force shapes almost every aspect of our lives: spin. Despite its ubiquity, rotational force continues to baffle and surprise, and few people realize how it makes our planet habitable or how it has been tamed by engineers to make our lives more comfortable. Charting the development of engineering and technology from the earliest prehistoric drills to the gas turbine, critically acclaimed author and scientist Roland Ennos presents a riveting account of human ingenuity and the seemingly infinite ways spin affects our daily lives. He also shows how this new approach not only helps us better understand the world but also ourselves. After all, even our own bodies are complex systems of rotating joints and levers.

Artfully moving between astrophysics and anthropology, The Science of Spin shows how, whether natural or engineered, spin is really what makes the world go round.

Roland Ennos is a visiting professor of biological sciences at the University of Hull. He is the author of successful textbooks on plants, biomechanics, and statistics, and his popular book Trees, published by the Natural History Museum, is now in its third edition. He is also the author of The Age of Wood and The Science of Spin. He lives in England.