Tom jackson biography books

Tom Jackson uses writing to make science accessible and entertaining. He has written more than 80 books on the physical and life sciences and is adept at deconstructing complex topics with logic and humor. You use stories and humor to share scientific explanations and help people make sense of our natural and manipulated environment. Is your goal for people to think scientifically, or is the storytelling a way to explain specific aspects of our life, like refrigeration?

To make people think scientifically might be overstating it a little. The people who created that understanding for me us used science to do it, and it is their lives, ideas, and discoveries that make a good story. So, you get two for one — the story of interesting lives and discoveries that are linked through history, and that then creates a big picture of a grand idea.

However, people should inform themselves about the world as much as possible so they can retain control over their lives and make good decisions about it.

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It was surprising to learn that refrigeration was developed more to indulge people who enjoyed cold drinks and ice cream than from a need to keep people healthy. Is privilege a greater driver of change than health? Well, money is the driver, but everyone already knows that. I think the actual reason is the resilience of the technology.

It is comparatively simple to create a technology for making ice cream from local produce or making blocks of ice for sale in the local area. The idea preceded the ability, and there are many stories of food kept fresh for months while in transit going rotten in a matter of hours because the cold chain did not reach all the way to the consumer back then.

The modern cold chain works amazingly well — so well, we barely give it a thought. That was one of the ideas that attracted me to the story of refrigeration in the first place. Just imagine if the cold chain broke.