Questione di Chimica by Mai Thi Nguyen-Kim

Questione di Chimica

by Mai Thi Nguyen-Kim is an electrifying new book published by Marsilio. Have you ever seen The Big Bang Theory? Right: the approach of this young chemist is this one: absolutely wonderful and unique in the genre! This book can be read pretty quickly but at the same time will leave you more conscious of the world where we live in and what happen in our daily life. While I was reading it I thought at the big difference that there is when someone is prepared in the topic, and others are not. You can't never appreciate a topic like physics of chemistry if, at school you don't meet a "divulgative brain." Mai Thi is all this; starting from his daily life, her companion, her best friend Christine, analyzes in detail what happen in a day or more seen and read with the brain of a chemist.

Reading this book it was clear to me that this past summer I left my smartphone in areas of the house too much warm sometimes for example. Many years ago my private english teacher of the high school, I met her at the supermarket sounded pretty scared: "Oh no, not this one and neither the other one. I can't buy these toothpastes. Why, I replied? No sure you, I have some favorite brands and in general without too much thinking I put them in the basket.

"They contain a mortal substance. It causes cancer," she answered me back.

I was deadly scared at the idea. I clean my teeth, 5 times per day. Bloody hell, I thought I will die pretty soon. In this book I found a good explanation and I am reassured that I shouldn't die for any mortal illness caused by toothpaste.

Substantially Mai Thi's family 8s largely composed by chemists and Mai Thi  started to appreciating chemistry since she was little and her dad started to explaining her the world seen and read with his eyes. It's a creative world, where there are little little particles that can be seen just in lab.

Once completed her studies and a master at the Harvard University located in Cambridge, Massachusetts Mai Thi decided of opening a YouTube channel for speaking something about The Secret Life of Scientists. She thinks that it's important to let know to everyone how beauty chemistry is. According to her there are too many false myths that must be corrected regarding this job and people working in the field.

I always say that we live in a world populated by chemistry, physics, math and geometry.

With the eyes of a chemist, Mai Thi will guide you in a fascinating trip, with experiments that you can repeat at home, speaking about what happen everyday in our existence, and our interactions with the most common tools, substances of our daily life.

In a divulgative way Mai Thi teach to all of us chemistry, entering in details in the various segments she analyzes in the chapter taken in consideration, so she will introduce us atoms and the world surrounding them; or what happen in our mouth when we eat and at our teeth in particular; but she will also explain us what happen chemically to food and ingredients like coffee, chocolate, telling us what makes the difference in the various fats and why some of them are more nocive than other ones. Not only; water, smartphone, name a daily activity. It's here!

I would suggest this book to everyone but in particular at students and teachers as well. 

I thank Marsilio for the physical copy of this book composed by a lot of particles as my body, my keyboard and the entire world surrounding me.

Anna Maria Polidori