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Good Reads  Reference  Physical Sciences  Popular Science

Sticking Together The Science of Adhesion

Popular Science
By: Steven Abbott(Author), Mark Abbott(Illustrator)
278 pages, b/w illustrations
NHBS
An entertaining, opinionated, and well-written general introduction to adhesion, Sticking Together turned out to be educational in more than one way.
Sticking Together
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  • Sticking Together ISBN: 9781788018043 Paperback May 2020 Not in stock: Usually dispatched within 1-2 weeks
    £19.99
    #250745
Price: £19.99
About this book Contents Customer reviews Biography Related titles Recommended titles

About this book

How do we make things stick together? Exactly how super is super glue? Can duct tape solve all of your problems?

This book is about providing simple answers to these sticky questions and more by showing how adhesion science, in a very real sense, is holding civilization together. Adhesives are everywhere in our daily lives. With some spaghetti, a few geckos, a couple of frying pans and a lot of problem solving science, adhesion – what makes things stick – is explained with wit and panache by Professor Steven Abbott. From chewing gum to Portland cement and everything in between, all are passed under the microscope to see if, how, and, in some cases, to whom things stick and why.

Accompanied by an extensive suite of videos illustrating how science works, Sticking Together will pull apart the facts, dispel some tacky myths and reveal a few sticky surprises.

Contents

- Introduction
- Background Ideas
- Sticking like a Gecko
- How Stuck is Stuck?
- Strong Adhesion
- Strong Adhesion with Weak Polymers
- Sticking Other Things Together
- Watching Paint Dry
- Sticking in 3D
- Not Sticking
- How Nature Sticks Things

Customer Reviews (1)

  • Entertaining, opinionated and educational
    By Leon (NHBS Catalogue Editor) 28 Sep 2020 Written for Paperback


    Are you the kind of person who reaches for screws and nails rather than glue when you need to stick two things together? So am I. And if I am to believe chemist Steven Abbott, that is not the only thing I am mistaken in. I was initially confused when I saw this book. Why is the Royal Society of Chemistry publishing a book about adhesion, surely that is all just physics? Actually, that is only partially true: this subject is chock-full of chemistry. An entertaining, opinionated, and well-written general introduction, Sticking Together turned out to be educational in more than one way.

    At the heart of Abbott’s thinking lies the slogan “adhesion is a property of the system”. Since this is really core to the book, it is worth unpacking this straightaway. What it means is that there is much more to the subject of adhesion than just the adhesive, whether tape, glue or something else. Just as important are the properties of what you are sticking to, but also the kinds of forces and loads your bond will be exposed to, and the environmental conditions such as temperature and humidity under which you expect things to stick. A one-glue-fits-all solution is an impossibility: what works under some conditions is completely unsuitable for others. And this is where there are a lot of misunderstandings, giving adhesives an undeserved bad reputation.

    After some much-needed technical basics – such as the important difference between peel, shear, and butt forces* – Sticking Together takes a surprisingly wide foray into tacky topics. Next to the usual suspects, a small but noteworthy selection of other things that stick together covered here include cement, aeroplanes, paint, 3D printed material, and, yes, even humans. And then there is the question of why some things do not stick. Not only will this book help you understand what adhesive is best for whatever job you have at hand, but it also clears up some urban legends, such as the idea that roughening a surface increases adhesion – it actually achieves the opposite.

    To clarify his explanations, Abbott relies on diagrams to show e.g. the difference between entanglement and crosslinks, or brittle vs. flexible bonds (and why superglue is not the answer to everything). Besides the book, he has apps online where you can play with values put into formulas , as well as a series of YouTube videos. The latter are of a charming kind of ’90s home-video quality. And I do not write this to belittle them, it just drives home the point how spoiled we have become by the high-production-quality science-explainer videos available on YouTube nowadays. One thing I would have changed had I done the layout of the book would be to replace the YouTube play button symbols with QR-codes (leaving the URL in place for those without a smartphone).

    Reading Sticking Together gave me a renewed appreciation of just how ubiquitous and important adhesion is in our lives, but there are two other aspects worth highlighting that made this book more than just an enjoyable pop-science chemistry book for me.

    First is Abbott’s frankness in admitting his ignorance. He has been wrong about certain topics in the past and writes freely of his mistaken ideas and what he learned from them in the end. Furthermore, in his role as a chemistry consultant, he is frequently called in to advice on problems where he only has outsider knowledge, with the other parties bringing in their own expertise. Examples include product manufacturers who are struggling to find the right adhesive for new packaging material. Abbott enthusiastically writes of the resulting meeting of minds and the unexpected and exciting new ideas that often emerge.

    The other is his outspoken pro-science and pro-chemistry attitude. More than once he wearily tells of chemical scare stories that broke in the media, resulting in yet another useful chemical compound having to be abandoned in the face of unreasonable public sentiment, when the real risks are negligible. And he similarly takes issue with the appeal-to-nature fallacy (see my review of Natural: The Seductive Myth of Nature's Goodness, pointing out how “natural” is not always better. Though a clever marketing ploy, many so-called green solutions are more harmful and costly to the environment once a full life-cycle analysis is done. The chapter on paints even concludes with a spot-on admonishment that the assumption “industry bad, consumers good” frequently has got it backwards. Industry experts work very hard to develop safe and reliable products. It is consumers who insist on buying cheap, inferior products that ultimately cost the planet more.

    Overall, Abbott reminds me of the enthusiastic high school teacher too few of us had. Luckily, it is never too late to make up for such missed opportunities. For a more technical take on the subject, readers can turn to Abbott’s book Adhesion Science, but those seeking a gentle introduction would do well to stick (sorry) to this book.

    *Also known as whole sample vertical pull, basically the brute-force pulling many of us will initially resort to when things refuse to come undone.
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Biography

Professor Steven Abbott studied chemistry at Oxford and received a PhD for work done in Oxford and Harvard. A post-doc in the Nobel Prize winning lab of Prof Jean-Marie Lehn in Strasbourg was followed by an industrial career in the chemical company ICI and in a coatings company near Oxford. He collaborated for many years with a team at the University of Leeds and was appointed as Visiting Professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering. He has been an independent scientist since 2009, a trouble-shooter, trainer and prolific app writer, and author of free eBooks linked to the apps. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Popular Science
By: Steven Abbott(Author), Mark Abbott(Illustrator)
278 pages, b/w illustrations
NHBS
An entertaining, opinionated, and well-written general introduction to adhesion, Sticking Together turned out to be educational in more than one way.
Media reviews

"This is a fascinating book. A must-read for anyone interested in how the world gets stuck together and the vital role chemistry plays in our everyday lives."
– Mark Miodownik, University College London

"With Sticking Together, Abbott has created a treasure trove for anyone interested in how and why things stick. A delightful mix of anecdote, experience and explanation, it makes for an entertaining and informative read."
– Laurie Winkless, author of Science and the City

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