The problem with science education lies in how it's taught.

The fact is science is all around us.

Take that jar of M&Ms, for instance.

Paul Chaikin of Princeton (pictured, from his Web site) was given a huge jar of them as a joke, because he likes them. M&Ms, unlike most other candies, are "oblate spheroids," thin, wide, and solid.

Chaikin started thinking of them in terms of his specialty, physics. It sure seemed like you could get a whole bunch of them into that jar, more than you could, say, gumballs (which are spheres).

Chaikin did the math. Dump gumballs into a jar at random and they take up 64% of the available room -- there are many spots where the balls run up against each other. (Want to see this pattern on a large scale? Go to any Toys R Us and look at the cage where they store the cheap rubber balls they sell to kids.) An M&M, however, will turn and take up 71% of the space. Best of all, how about something that's not circular on top, say, an almond M&M? Now you're taking up 77% of the space. (Mars, which makes M&Ms, donated 125 pounds of almond M&Ms for this stage of the research.)

So take these two guys on the right, taken from the official M&M site. For 50 points, kids, who packs better into a 50-pound drum?

What does this have to do with anything? A lot. As things cool into a solid, they come together. If they're not coming together in a crystal or lattice, if they're coming together randomly, they're going to pack in as tight as possible. If you want to build high-density ceramics, say to make better planes, this kind of knowledge is vital. Simply replace the M&Ms with some other material, say a plastic, whose molecules share the shape, and you have the strength you need to get off the ground with less weight.

Physics, not boxing, is the sweet science.