The Physics of Christmas: From the Aerodynamics of Reindeer to the Thermodynamics of Turkey

Amazon.com
Roger Highfield loves science, and he loves Christmas, too. Combining the two in The Physics of Christmas is his attempt to refute the notion that "the materialist insights of science destroy our capacity to wonder, leaving the world a more boring and predictable place." To that end, Highfield presents an amusing, eclectic, and trivia-filled collection of scientific observations about one of the Western world's most beloved holidays.

Contrary to the title, Highfield doesn't limit himself to physics. His anthropological observations include tracing the origins of Santa Claus--an especially amusing and enlightening chapter entitled "Santa: The Hallucinogenic Connection" examines the possibilities of the psychoactive mushroom Amanita muscaria's red-and-white cap being the inspiration for Santa's robes. In a tip of the stocking cap to biology, Highfield hints at a parasitic infestation that may be responsible for poor Rudolph's red nose and examines the advantages of cloned Christmas trees. Psychologically speaking, we find an analysis of the emotional weight of gift giving and card exchanging (sever all relationships with those who send musical cards, research suggests), and how a holiday can be both religious and commercial. Even post-holiday depression is deconstructed, along with Santa's unhealthy obesity and apparent immortality, the effects of alcohol on sleep patterns, the astronomical origins of the Bethlehem star, and the ins and outs of snow.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In The Physics of Christmas, award-winning science journalist D. Roger Highfield acts as a guiding spirit to everyone's favorite holiday, illuminating Christmas by viewing its many cherished rituals and icons from a new and fascinating perspective: science. Calling upon the latest research in chemistry, mathematics, genetics, anthropology, physics, psychology, and astronomy, Highfield explores such questions as these: Could reindeer really fly? How do snowflakes form, and what could scientists do to guarantee an annual white Christmas? Is there a biological reason that so many people prefer not to eat Brussels sprouts at Christmas dinner? Why is Santa so obese? Why are we so frequently depressed after the holiday season?

FROM THE CRITICS

Jennifer Reese

Imagine sitting down to Christmas dinner -- roast bird, glittering tree, stockings hung by the chimney with care -- when your dinner partner gestures to the turkey thigh on your plate. Did you know, he asks, that the leg meat is dark because it contains myoglobin, an oxygen-storing molecule that a turkey needs in its muscular legs but not in its lazy breast? Game birds, on the other hand "spend more time on the wing, and their breast meat may be as dark as their drumsticks, seasoned with myoglobin throughout."

Oh yes, he goes on, and that dreaded plum pudding is a descendant of "frumenty, a type of porridge made from hulled wheat spiced and boiled in milk," while the brandy sauce that makes it edible is of "huge interest to surface scientists" because of the unusual way the molecules bind together. As for the role of the chimney at Christmas, some psychologists believe it is a metaphor for the vagina: One reason people become depressed at Christmas may be that Santa's descent revives memories of their birth traumas. If this is your idea of great holiday chitchat, Roger Highfield, the science editor at London's Daily Telegraph, has written the book for you. The Physics of Christmas: From the Aerodynamics of Reindeer to the Thermodynamics of Turkey is a collection of short, bright essays that attempt to explain by means of science -- very broadly defined to include anthropology, psychology and sociology as well chemistry and biology -- all the wacky things people do during the holidays. No subject is too small for Highfield's enthusiastic scrutiny. He devotes one essay to the reasons Brussels sprouts are bitter; another to the architecture of snowflakes; yet another to the biology of reindeer.

Sampled in small doses, these essays can be fascinating. You may have some dim notion that Santa Claus harks back to St. Nicholas, a holy man from the coast of Turkey. It is less well known that some academics posit that his suit is red because people liked to ingest psychedelic toadstools -- "the recreational and ritualistic drug of choice in parts of northern Europe before vodka was imported from the East." Santa's vivid robes, Highfield writes, are thought by some to "honor the red-and-white dot color scheme of this potent mind-altering mushroom." It will be a long time before I forget that the Lapps of northern Scandinavia -- who pulverize reindeer horns and market the stuff as an aphrodisiac -- actually have a genetic mutation rendering some of the men "unusually virile." Or that a cancer research organization has found that Christmas is the only meal of the year at which most British children eat sufficient amounts of vegetables.

But read more than one or two of Highfield's pieces at a time, and you may find yourself reaching anxiously for another egg nog. Highfield is an engaging writer, with an obvious and endearing passion for his subject. But what he has assembled in this pretty volume is an intimidating mountain of random scientific trivia. Taken as a whole, it is more exhausting than explanatory. Like Christmas cheer -- "the fermentation of fruit and grain by the activity of fungi called yeasts" -- The Physics of Christmas is best enjoyed in moderation. -- Salon

Booknews

Surveying a range of scientific fields' answers to Christmas puzzlers, the author argues that, among other things, Rudolph's red nose stems from a parasitical infection, the star of Bethlehem may have been the conjunction of planets, and Santa relies on a superconducting quantum interference device to interpret the magnetic brainwaves of bad and good children. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Simon Singh