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The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements |  | Author: Sam Kean
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Category: Book
List Price: $24.99
Buy New: $10.61
as of 9/6/2010 07:47 EDT details
You Save: $14.38 (58%)
New (42) Used (12) from $10.61
Seller: Holston Book
Rating:  22 reviews
Sales Rank: 198
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 400
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6 x 1.2
ISBN: 0316051640
Dewey Decimal Number: 546
EAN: 9780316051644
ASIN: 0316051640
Publication Date: July 12, 2010
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| • | ISBN13: 9780316051644 | | • | Condition: New | | • | Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed |
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| • | Audio CD - The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements | | • | Kindle Edition - The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements | | • | Audible Audio Edition - The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements | | • | Audio CD - The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements | | • | Audio CD - The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements |
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Product Description
The Periodic Table is one of man's crowning scientific achievements. But it's also a treasure trove of stories of passion, adventure, betrayal, and obsession. The infectious tales and astounding details in THE DISAPPEARING SPOON follow carbon, neon, silicon, and gold as they play out their parts in human history, finance, mythology, war, the arts, poison, and the lives of the (frequently) mad scientists who discovered them.
We learn that Marie Curie used to provoke jealousy in colleagues' wives when she'd invite them into closets to see her glow-in-the-dark experiments. And that Lewis and Clark swallowed mercury capsules across the country and their campsites are still detectable by the poison in the ground. Why did Gandhi hate iodine? Why did the Japanese kill Godzilla with missiles made of cadmium? And why did tellurium lead to the most bizarre gold rush in history?
From the Big Bang to the end of time, it's all in THE DISAPPEARING SPOON.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 22
 Accessible science for any age July 3, 2010
Amy E. Henry (Nipomo, CA United States)
103 out of 103 found this review helpful
I have to confess I didn't pay much attention to chemistry. Once the instructor talked about electrons, protons, atoms and the nucleus I usually turned on my Walkman (the cassette kind, now antique!). It never seemed interesting because it wasn't something that related at all to real life. If I had a teacher like Sam Kean, however, that could have been different.
Fast forward too many years, and now I'm engrossed in this nonfiction 'memoir' of the Periodic Table of Elements. Like any good biography, this has scandal, lies, fraud, madness, explosions (!!!) and lots of name-dropping. Kean explains just what the periodic table is, but in a format that reads more like a novel, with anecdotal details to liven it up. Mercury pills were used by Lewis and Clark for their health? Yep, and you can trace their path (um, at least their bathroom trips on their journey) by where scientists have found unusually high amounts of mercury in the soil. The poet Robert Lowell? Did lithium ruin his work by making him sane? Who knew the lies and fraud and mind games played by scientists intent on getting a Nobel Prize!
There's no getting around it, this is a book that makes you think. It's not simple and it assumes you have a basic knowledge of science. Some areas were over my head, but not for long. Kean is a wonderful teacher with a sassy wise guy voice that livens up any of the deeper areas.
Periodic Table Tour de Force July 13, 2010
Eric R. Scerri (UCLA, Los Angles, CA)
37 out of 37 found this review helpful
Sam Kean has written a marvelous book that will delight general readers and experts alike. The writing is crisp and sharp and includes an unusual political savyness for somebody treating scientific issues. Kean uses his journalistic skills to succeed in doing what many, perhaps most, academics fail to do when presenting the relevance of chemistry to the real world. Not just applications but also how the history of individual elements has affected the lives of ordinary people. See for example his account of niobium and tantalum. Then there are chapters that weave together the lives of famous chemists and physicists such as one on Segre and Pauling, all in the context of the discovery of elements and developments in twentieth century chemistry and physics. Technicalities are kept to a minimum and when necessary explanations are provided in a clear and lucid manner.
Everybody should read this book, period.
Dr. Eric Scerri, author of The Periodic Table, Its Story and Its Significance, Oxford University Press, 2006.
A fun and interesting read! July 14, 2010
Ryan C.
24 out of 28 found this review helpful
I love books but only have so much time, so I'm pretty careful about what I choose to read. I heard great things about this book through word of mouth, and it didn't disappoint! Kean does a masterful job of explaining the interesting facts and stories behind the elements that make up our universe in a way that's easy to understand and fun to read. Especially for people like me, who love to learn...but maybe spent more time in high school science class shooting spitwads than actually reading our boring text books! With "The Disappearing Spoon," Kean truly makes science and history come alive--I highly recommend!
Worth its weight in Au July 25, 2010
E. Jacobs
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
This book is going to join a very select group of those which I have read multiple times. There is so much fun and interesting information in this work that I suspect I will keep finding new things upon another go-around. Sam Kean has created what is truly a scientific masterpiece with this book.
Breaking up the periodic table into various sections which blend the elements into tales of science, politics, medicine, and philosophy--to name just a few--Kean pulls off the magic trick of making the dreaded periodic table exciting and interesting again. There is no shortage of future conversation-starting facts and tidbits in this book. I confess that in some parts I had to go through it rather slowly to make sure I understood what I was reading, because the breadth of the book is very impressive and roams all over physics and chemistry. But trust me when I say that I have serious doubts that anyone could have made the science more accessible than the author of this book. It may be the case that experts in some of the more esoteric areas about which he writes might quibble about over-simplification, but for the general reader, the book is a fine example of how to bring science out of its perceived shell of boredom.
This book was an absolute trifecta for me, including science, humor, and suspense wrapped up with some brilliant writing into a near-perfect package. I read it on my Kindle but am going to buy a hard copy for my library. A big thank-you to Sam Kean for such an enjoyable read.
Terrific! August 3, 2010
litaddiction (Chicago)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
From Sam Kean:
"I ended up with an honors degree in physics, but [...] my real education was in my professors' stories. [...] I realized that there's a funny, or odd, or chilling tale attached to every element on the periodic table."
Kean came to those professors already primed for their stories -- by having been fascinated to find mercury not only in the Periodic Table of science class but also in his childhood thermometers ... and in literature's mad hatter ... and in the mercury-laxative leftovers discovered in Lewis & Clark's trail of latrines.
Though I didn't keep strict track, I think Kean includes a tale for every single element in this terrific book. And while he did so, he opened my eyes to things I'd forgotten (or not ever known!!), for example:
* Chemistry is based on atoms' electrons and physics on their nuclei;
* "Alchemy" is true: every element traces back to the fusion of solar hydrogen atoms;
* The familiar Periodic Table is just one of many potential configurations of the elements, some of which are 3D;
* There are more than three states of matter;
* Our bodies don't monitor whether we're inhaling enough oxygen, only that we're exhaling enough carbon dioxide;
* Midas was real as well as fictional;
* Why sci-fi life-forms are based on silicon;
* Why Americans call it "aluminum" but it's "aluminium" to everybody else.
There's chemistry here, and physics and biology. But there's also astronomy, geology, history, politics, warfare, economics, gender studies, human ambition and inter-personal conflict. And there's a whole lotta humor. There are also dozens of entertaining and informative endnotes, suggestions for further reading, and an index. The only way to make it even better would be to read it alongside Theodore Gray's The Elements.
(Review based on an advance reading copy provided by the publisher.)
Showing reviews 1-5 of 22
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