The Disappearing Spoon And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements

by Kean, Sam

• ISBN13: 9780316051644
• ISBN10: 0316051640
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-07-12
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Summary

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 buried 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.

Author Biography

Sam Kean is a writer in Washington, D.C. His work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Mental Floss, Slate, The Believer, Air & Space, Science, and The New Scientist. He is currently working as a reporter at Science magazine and as a 2009 Middlebury Environmental Journalism fellow.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 3
Orientation: Column by Column, Row by Row
Geography is Destiny	p. 11
Near Twins and Black Sheep: The Genealogy of Elements	p. 32
The Galápagos of the Periodic Table	p. 47
Making Atoms, Breaking Atoms
Where Atoms Come From: ôWe Are All Star Stuffö	p. 65
Elements in Times of War	p. 81
Completing the Table…with a Bang	p. 98
Extending the Table, Expanding the Cold War	p. 115
Periodic Confusion: The Emergence of Complexity
From Physics to Biology	p. 135
Poisoner's Corridor: ôOuch-Ouchö	p. 152
Take Two Elements, Call Me in the Morning	p. 167
How Elements Deceive	p. 186
The Elements of Human Character
Political Elements	p. 203
Elements as Money	p. 222
Artistic Elements	p. 238
An Element of Madness	p. 255
Element Science Today and Tomorrow
Chemistry Way, Way Below Zero	p. 277
Spheres of Splendor: The Science of Bubbles	p. 295
Tools of Ridiculous Precision	p. 314
Above (and Beyond) the Periodic Table	p. 331
Acknowledgments and Thanks	p. 347
Notes and Errata	p. 349
Bibliography	p. 377
Index	p. 379
The Periodic Table of the Elements	p. 392
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