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Periodic Tales: The Curious Lives of the Elements

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Louis Catrier changed the rules of high-society jewellery by using platinum as it was hard as opposed to gold and silver Periodic Tales’ adopts Nechaev’s central thesis; to describe the sheer human and technological excitement of the discovery of the chemical elements. Unsurprisingly, there is considerably more to say in 2011 than in 1942; and not only about the fleeting fascinating existences of the man-made transuranic elements; where physicists have gracelessly elbowed the chemists out of the party. Also interesting were the seemingly universal reactions to certain elements - disgust at the “yellow vomit of light” in sodium (mostly in street lamps), respect for the “purity” of silver, awe at the “immortality” of gold, and so on. I also liked the historical examples of thallium and arsenic securing their place in the world as dangerous poisons used by stealthy murderers. Svante Arrhenius: First director of the Nobel Institute. Arrived at an estimate of the amount of gold dissolved in the seawater Strangely, these different elements make up a very small part of the cosmos. Ninety per cent – more or less – of matter in the observable universe consists of hydrogen while the other 10% is helium. The other elements account for a mere 0.04% of total matter and could be dismissed by an overenthusiastic mathematician while rounding up his figures. We live in an odd part of the cosmos, it would seem.

Periodic tales : Hugh Aldersey-Williams : Free Download Periodic tales : Hugh Aldersey-Williams : Free Download

The discovery of elements (the famous table is longer than it was when I took chemistry), the scientists and properties and uses are discussed. You’ll read some great stories. There was a time when arts and sciences were closer. Alchemy became just too fanciful for science. When the Enlightenment era came along leading scientists, artists and poets could all sit down and appreciate each other’s work. Difficult to imagine today. Autors pastāsta arī dažus savus eksperimentus, uz kuriem viņu ir pamudinājusi grāmatas sarakstīšana. Tad nu varam uzzināt kā no urīna iegūt fosforu vai no asinīm dzelzi.

Mr Aldersey-Williams’ select bibliography now strongly and helpfully points me in the direction of I Nechaev’s 1942 book “Chemical Elements” (or rather of the translation from the Russian), as being my long-lost book. N=81) е описано в книгата на Агата Кристи "Сивият кон", чиято популярност води до разкриване на истински случаи на отравяне - някои поради рискови условия на труд, но други като опит за убийство. One difference from Kean's book is that Aldersey-Williams' book is more autobiographical and outlines a number of personal household experiments which he carries out to illustrate the properties of the elements under discussion - such as pouring molten lead into water to produce weird shapes from which one's fortune can be told and extracting phosphorus from one's own urine.

Wider Reading List (Optional) — Wilmslow High School Wider Reading List (Optional) — Wilmslow High School

In a past review I confessed that I was for the most part scientifically illiterate. I'm not sure how far this book went in curing that but I do know a bit more about the periodic table than I used to. I can name the elements designated as halogens ,fluorine, chlorine, bromine and iodine as well as a few of the noble gases ,xenon, radon, and krypton. I'm not sure if this really counts as scientific knowledge or just knowledge of scientific terms though. I learned a lot of things thanks to this book. It is practically a science book for college students. I learned what explodes when reacted with water, what makes our streetlights glow, what makes an object a certain color, and what possibly killed Napoleon (undetermined if it was the actual cause of death). Also, I learned some chemistry terms. This book made me change what I read because I really want to read interesting facts now, either from the internet or from a book. I need to expand my horizon of what I read because someday, the information I gained could help me later in the future. Wer schon einmal in seinem Leben Chemieunterricht hatte, kennt garantiert die große Tafel mit dem Periodensystem der Elemente, die wohl in jedem Chemiesaal an der Wand hängt, und während Sauerstoff, Eisen oder Gold jedermann ein Begriff sind, hat man sich in der einen oder anderen öden Unterrichtsstunde sicher schon mal gefragt, was genau eigentlich Ytterbium, Cadmium oder Neodym sein soll oder woher Antimon und Cer ihre merkwürdigen Namen haben.After many years away from taking multiple chemistry classes in high school, college and dental school, I found this book an enjoyable return to being a student again. The author takes you through an historical journey of the discovery of the natural and man made chemical elements. Many details of the elements discovery, uses, and other trivia are revealed in this book.The author's journey through Mendeleev's periodic table gave me a new appreciation of Mendeleev's organizational genius of grouping related elements and creating the table before most of the elements had been discovered . The new man made elements continue to enlarge the periodic table but still fit into the original table's format.

Periodic Tales: The Curious Lives of the Elements eBook Periodic Tales: The Curious Lives of the Elements eBook

The red poppy which we commemorate the loss of life in World War I is a symbol of survival- the flower grew from the soil of the battlefields which were fertilized with the blood of the slain. However, chlorine- which was used in 1915 would both choke lungs and bleach the flowers white. Chlorine is the most brutal weapon as it rips through the blood vessels that line the lung and the victim eventually drowns in a fluid produced as the body attempts to repair the damage. Haber's wife, Clara, commited suicide using her husband's revolver whereas his son by his second marriage, Lutz, was haunted by his father's history and wrote the book The Poisonous Cloud. Haber was forced to leave Germany with his family when his Berlin research insitute was shut down by the Nazis. Here you'll meet iron that rains from the heavens and noble gases that light the way to vice. You'll learn how lead can tell your future while zinc may one day line your coffin. You'll discover what connects the bones in your body with the Whitehouse in Washington, the glow of a streetlamp with the salt on your dinner table. Iron has long thought to have male warlike properties. The metallic taste of blood was explained when Vincenzo Menghini roasted the blood of several mammals and poked the residue with a magnetic knife and found iron particles. Mars is covered with iron which Great fun to read and an endless fund of unlikely and improbable anecdotes ... sharp and often witty"It must be tough to write a book on science. Make it too simplistic and it may have wider appeal but the people most likely to buy it will think it stinks. Go gung-ho into the subject and in this case chemists will love it while it cures the insomnia of the general public. Ultimately, this book is a bit of both. For the UK edition:“[F]ascinating and beautiful. . . . If only chemistry had been like this at school. . . . [A] rich compilation of delicious tales.”— Matt Ridley, Prospect magazine When Pierre-Louis Dulong first made the highly explosive liquid nitrogen trichloride, it cost him and eye and three fingers. When

Periodic tales: The curious lives of the elements | News Periodic tales: The curious lives of the elements | News

I was born in London in 1959, the same year C.P. Snow gave his infamous ‘two cultures’ lecture about the apparently eternal divide in Britain between the arts and sciences. Perhaps this is where it all begins. Forced to choose one or the other at school and university, I chose the latter, gaining an MA in natural sciences from Cambridge. surface when it is exposed to the air. Marine phosphorescence occurs when enzymes trigger chemical reactions in bioluminescent bacteria but does not involve phosphorous directly.The idea is definitely interesting - Mendeleev's periodic table classifies elements based on their physical and chemical properties. Whilst this may suffice for more technical use, these elements interact and are construed in our common life very differently. And thus, is there any merit in studying elements together that have similar values (E.g. clubbing "value" metals such as gold, silver, platinum etc. together). The brilliance of the book, however, lies in the author's ability to showcase our anthropomorphism with these elements. For instance, iron for strength, Arsenic as an adjective for anything poisonous, platinum for anything rare and precious (think platinum jubilee, platinum membership etc.) and so on. The author talks about how these elements have evolved with the society and our needs (e.g. Aluminium was considered a precious and power metal based on Napolean's use of it, but with time has lowered in perceived value). Delving into these elements also allows the author to explore interesting correlations around the time and geography of these elements being discovered. All in all, the author does a good job of bringing to life these fundamental and ubiquitous, yet often ignored elements. Aldersey-Williams’s playful, hands-on approach to scientific exploration shines through the book. Boston Globe

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