What Einstein Kept Under His Hat: Secrets of Science in the Kitchen (56 page)
Read What Einstein Kept Under His Hat: Secrets of Science in the Kitchen Online
Authors: Robert L. Wolke
Copyright © 2005 by Robert L. Wolke
Recipes copyright © 2005 by Marlene Parrish
Illustrations copyright © 2005 by Alan Witschonke Illustration
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
First published as a Norton paperback 2012
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Answers: 1-d, 2-j, 3-b, 4-e, 5-g, 6-h, 7-c, 8-f, 9-i, 10-a
*
In chemistry, the opposite of an acid is called a base. Acids and bases neutralize each other. But because
base
is a word with many common meanings (more than a dozen each as noun and adjective), I use the words
alkali
and
alkaline
in this book instead of
base
and
basic
. Strictly speaking, however, the word
alkali
should be reserved for the very strong bases sodium hydroxide (lye) and potassium hydroxide.
†
When proteins are subjected to heat or acids, the structures of their long, twisted molecules change, usually by unraveling or “deconstructing” themselves and then shrinking or tightening up like knotted rubber bands. This molecular reconfiguration process is called
denaturing
. In this book, I will frequently refer to denaturing as a “reconfiguring” of the protein molecules.