how to dunk a doughnut

Actually the question is more about dunking biscuits - how do you soften them without them collapsing into your coffee. The author has researched the question and found that the best solution is to use a biscuit with something to hold it together in the middle. There's a chapter on how to estimate your supermarket bill as you go along - interestingly the author's first method did very badly and his wife's was much more successful. Why does a boomerang come back? The book is full of such questions and how the author investigated them, and I found it a highly enjoyable read.

The final chapter on 'the physics of sex' no doubt will appeal to the teenage market, but it might make anyone thinking of giving the book as a gift think twice.

But there's a paradox here. The author has been mildly rebuked by the media for invading our everyday lives with science, but what sort of R&D do they think large food companies are doing? The book seems to be about finding a novel area to apply science to, and so appeal to non-scientists, but that isn't the case. Indeed most of the chapters are based on talks given to groups of scientists or to school science clubs. Hence I would say that the book was most suited to those learning science to get a lighthearted look at ways in which they can use their new knowledge.