So...
I wanted to give my almost done with the book, book report!
This most recent selection is called - “The Disappearing Spoon” by Sam Kean (2011).
From New York Times bestselling author Sam Kean comes incredible stories of
science, history, finance, mythology, the arts, medicine, and more, as told by the Periodic Table.
Why did Gandhi hate iodine (I, 53)?
How did radium (Ra, 88) nearly ruin Marie Curie's reputation?
And why is gallium (Ga, 31) the go-to element for laboratory pranksters?*
The Periodic Table is a crowning scientific achievement, but it's also a treasure trove of adventure, betrayal, and obsession.
These fascinating tales follow every element on the table as they play out their parts in human history,
and in the lives of the (frequently) mad scientists who discovered them.
THE DISAPPEARING SPOON masterfully fuses science with the classic lore of invention, investigation, and discovery
--from the Big Bang through the end of time.
*Though solid at room temperature, gallium is a moldable metal that melts at 84 degrees Fahrenheit.
A classic science prank is to mold gallium spoons, serve them with tea, and watch guests recoil as their utensils disappear.
The full name of the book is The Disappearing Spoon and other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements.
So any history and/or science enthusiasts out there, you would probably like this one unless you really hated chemistry in HS.
There are, at times, parts of the book that go into technical detail of what electrons are being shared with other elements and how those reactions take place...some of that could be a bit daunting to anyone who disliked the maths of chemistry, but you could read through those portions without 100% understanding and still get to the root of the stories being told.
At times, it reads as if there are two books...one of the story being told of the historical discovery or search for certain elements and the building of the periodic table...and then you have the more technical bits and pieces about atomic weight and why the noble gases are inert, why Bismuth will be the last element to break down in the universe, etc.
It goes into the political backlash of certain discoveries as well as the good and evil humankind played with as they learned more about the building blocks of our known universe.
Seems very well researched and overall easy to understand with some juicy bits of factual chemical data for those of us who like that sort of thing.
Gives one a really in depth understanding of how the elements became known and arranged and why, and by whom, and what purposes they have played from the very earliest history of humankind on this planet to the future of possible ideas and the quantum realm.
5 stars!
