Chain Reaction: How Chemistry Shapes Us and Our World – A Leading Chemist's Intimate and Surprising Tour of the Science Underlying Everyday Life - Couverture rigide

Uchegbu, Ijeoma

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0063394626 ISBN 13 : 9780063394629

Editeur : Mariner Books, 2026

Synopsis

By one of the world’s leading chemists, an entertaining and revealing tour of the chemical bonds that shape our everyday lives and provide the infrastructure for our chaotic world.

We all have a relationship with chemistry. Bonds between molecules, forged and broken in the blink of an eye, underpin everything from the food we eat and the clothes we wear to the ways we treat illnesses and construct our homes. It’s a relationship we nurture, whether we know it or not, and for leading chemist Ijeoma Uchegbu, it was serious from the beginning.

In Chain Reaction, Uchegbu shows us the world through a chemist’s eyes, revealing the intricate science we take for granted: how our body’s most fundamental chemical structure, our DNA, is estimated to be two meters long, resting tightly within each of our cells; how egg yolks are held together by weak chemical bonds that make them primed for emulsifying our salad dressings; and how the chemical makeup of PFAs, or “forever chemicals,” makes them so good at sticking around.

Along the way, we travel from Uchegbu’s home in London to Nigeria, where cooking experiments go awry in her family kitchen, and to Italy, where the chemically inert compounds that make up stained glass keep medieval windows shining. The careful interplay of bonds and molecules brings a sense of order and wonder to the chaos of our lives, she shows, and we don’t have to wear a lab coat or study solutions in beakers to appreciate it.

For readers of Astrophysics for People in a Hurry and anyone who wanted to be like Elizabeth Zott in Lessons in Chemistry, Chain Reaction is a lively and intimate portrait of the wondrous and under-explored field that shapes our everyday lives.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

Dr. Ijeoma Uchegbu is a global leader in pharmaceutical science and academia. She serves as president of Wolfson College, Cambridge; professor of pharmaceutical nanoscience and Provost's Envoy for Race Equality at University College London; and governor of Wellcome, one of the largest biomedical research charities in the world. She is also founder and Chief Scientific Officer of the pharmaceutical company Nanomerics, Ltd. Among many other honors, Uchegbu was made Dame Commander of the British Empire in 2025.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Mariner Books
• Date d'édition: 2026
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0063394626
• ISBN 13: 9780063394629
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 320
• Coordonnées du fabricant: Product Safety Manager; enquiries@harpercollins.ie; ; HarperCollins, Macken House, 39/40 Mayor Street Upper; Dublin 1; D01 C9W8; Irlande