Even the great Isaac Newton – taking a break from celestial matters by sipping a cup of coffee under his favourite apple tree – might have been stymied by one mundane question. How, he may have wondered, do you dunk a doughnut to achieve nirvana – that is perfect softness and flavour – without losing part of the doughnut in the coffee? Along with boiling an egg, turning a wrench and adding up a shopping bill, this is surely one of those little moments in life that might be improved by applying some of our cosmic scientific understanding right here on Earth.

As the physicist Len Fisher points out in How to Dunk a Doughnut, the heavy weaponry that the physical sciences have developed to attack complex questions can be aimed at smaller targets as well. Here he uses basic ideas in physics, chemistry and mathematics to clear up several of life’s little enigmas. I am fairly sure, however, that not all of the everyday events that Fisher tackles have kept millions awake at night. Although I enjoy dipping those rock-hard Italian biscotti into my cappuccino, I have never thought about how to keep part of the biscuit from plopping into the coffee – merely accepting it as one of life’s mini tragedies.

But Fisher, apparently, is made of sterner scientific stuff and analyses what happens as liquid infuses baked goods. After applying the theory of diffusion, and carrying out some experiments, he comes up with a recommendation that makes scientific and intuitive sense – dip your doughnut horizontally, not vertically. The coffee then enters only from the bottom rather than from two sides at once, giving quadruple the time before cohesion is lost and a piece falls into the drink.

Other subjects tackled by Fisher include applying the fine art of mathematical approximation to shopping lists, soap foam, cooking the perfect roast, tossing a boomerang and the “physics of sex”.