The Science of Spin: How Rotational Forces Affect Everything from Your Body to Jet Engines to the Weather

“Spin pervades all aspects of the world around us,” according to this frustrating survey. Ennos (The Age of Wood), a biology professor at the University of Hull, England, explores spin’s role in such diverse phenomena as the operation of turbine engines, the movement of yo-yos, and the orbits of planets. He explains that the gravitational pull of the moon “sweep[s] the seas across the globe” in the opposite direction of Earth’s rotation, slowing how fast the planet spins on its axis and elongating days by 2.3 milliseconds per century. Other insights are harder to follow. The author’s account of how the invention of the flying shuttle in 1732 improved the productivity of looms will be lost on anyone who isn’t intimately familiar with the machines, and the description of how humans stay balanced by rotating their ankles expects readers to recognize precise anatomical terminology (“We relax our gastrocnemius muscles and contract our tibialis anterior muscles”). Additionally, the extended discussion of how “the hegemony of mathematics... has greatly obstructed the progress of science” by obscuring intuitive findings and repelling people “unwilling to grind their way through” complicated equations feels out of place. This will make readers’ heads spin. (July)