Handmade

April 17, 2023
Scientist Ploszajski leaves the laboratory for the atelier in her charming debut about the science of common materials. With wide-eyed wonder and a sense of humor, she examines the techniques behind the making of brass, paper, plastic, pottery, steel, and sugar, among other goods, and shares her attempts to produce them herself. Though she’s clumsy at a potter’s wheel and fumbled molten silica while blowing glass, she successfully delves into the chemistry and physics involved, explaining that clay comes from magma that reacted with granite and carbon dioxide underground, and that the “amorphous” molecular structure of glass makes it malleable when heated. Her examination of the substances’ uses brings her to unexpected places, including Bonneville Salt Flats International Speedway in Utah, where her expertise on the molecular structure of steel helped a team competing for a land speed record build a more durable car, as well as to the English Channel, where she relied on sugary treats to give her the energy to swim across it. Ploszajski is a talented science communicator, using analogies to illuminate the molecular world (“atoms that vibrate more energetically take up more space, like impassioned movers and shakers on the dance floor”), and the zany accounts of her fieldwork are lots of fun. This pop science adventure delights.