One day during cooking class, our teacher, Mrs. Pritchard, was extolling her secrets for preparing perfect sauces. When she ordered us to the stoves to prepare our assignments, she said, “Don’t forget to use wooden spoons.”

As I stirred my sauce, I contemplated the physics behind the mystery of the wooden spoon and decided it must have something to do with heat conduction. I approached Mrs. Pritchard to test my theory.

“Why wooden spoons?” I asked. “Because,” she replied, “if I have to sit here listening to all your metal spoons banging against metal pots, I’ll go nuts!”