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Review
"It happens often in biology, but only once in a rare while does an author come along with the craft and the vision to capture the fun and fascination of chemistry. Sam Kean's The Disappearing Spoon is a pleasure and full of insights. If only I had read it before taking chemistry." --Mark Kurlanksy, author of Salt and Cod
"If you stared a little helplessly at the chart of the periodic table on the wall of your high school chemistry class, then this is the book for you. It elucidates both the meanings and the pleasures of those numbers and letters, and does so with style and dash." --Bill McKibben, author of Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet
"The Disappearing Spoon shines a welcome light on the beauty of the periodic table. Follow plain speaking and humorous Sam Kean into its intricate geography and stray into astronomy, biology, and history, learn of neon rain and gas warfare, meet both ruthless and selfless scientists, and before it is over fall head over heels for the anything but arcane subject of chemistry." --Bill Streever, author of Cold
"The best science writers...bring an enthusiasm for the material that infects those of us who wouldn't usually give a flying proton. Sam Kean...unpacks the periodic table's bag of tricks with such aplomb and fascination that material normally as heavy as lead transmutes into gold. With the anecdotal flourishes of Oliver Sacks and the populist accessibility of Malcolm Gladwell...Kean succeeds in giving us the cold hard facts, both human and chemical, behind the astounding phenomena without sacrificing any of the wonder--a trait vital to any science writer worth his NaCl. A-" --Entertainment Weekly
"Sam Kean...is brimming with puckish wit, and his love for the elements is downright infectious. Kean's book is so rambunctious and so much fun, you'll find yourself wanting to grab someone just to share tidbits. But the alchemy of this book is the way Kean makes you see and experience and appreciate the world differently, with a real sense of wonder and a joy of discovery, that is downright elemental." --Caroline Leavitt, Boston Globe
"This is nonfiction to make you sound smart over gin and tonics: the human history behind the periodic table." --Time.com
"Sam Kean...has done something remarkable: He's made some highly technical science accessible, placed well-known and lesser-known discoveries in the contest of history and made reading about the lives of the men and women inside the lab coats enjoyable." --Austin American-Statesman
"Fascinating. Kean has Bill Bryson's comic touch when it comes to describing genius-lunatic scientists...The book is not so much a primer in chemistry as a lively history of the elements and the characters behind their discovery." --New Scientist
"A quirky and refreshingly human look at a structure we usually think of as purely pragmatic." --SeedMagazine.com
"[The Disappearing Spoon is] crammed full of compelling anecdotes about each of the elements, plenty of nerd-gossip involving Nobel prizes, and enough political intrigue to capture the interest of the anti-elemental among us. Once you're done with this book, do your chemistry teacher and all her future students a favor, and send her a copy." --Galleycat
"Kean loves a good story, and his account teems with ripping yarns, colorful characters, and the occasional tall tale of chemical invention....let us hope that Kean...continues to bring the excitement of science out of the lab and into the homes of the American reading public." --Chemical & Engineering News
"An idiosyncratic romp through the history of science. The author is a great raconteur with plenty of stories to tell....entertaining and enlightening." --Kirkus Reviews
"If you stared a little helplessly at the chart of the periodic table on the wall of your high school chemistry class, then this is the book for you. It elucidates both the meanings and the pleasures of those numbers and letters, and does so with style and dash." --Bill McKibben, author of Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet
"The Disappearing Spoon shines a welcome light on the beauty of the periodic table. Follow plain speaking and humorous Sam Kean into its intricate geography and stray into astronomy, biology, and history, learn of neon rain and gas warfare, meet both ruthless and selfless scientists, and before it is over fall head over heels for the anything but arcane subject of chemistry." --Bill Streever, author of Cold
"The best science writers...bring an enthusiasm for the material that infects those of us who wouldn't usually give a flying proton. Sam Kean...unpacks the periodic table's bag of tricks with such aplomb and fascination that material normally as heavy as lead transmutes into gold. With the anecdotal flourishes of Oliver Sacks and the populist accessibility of Malcolm Gladwell...Kean succeeds in giving us the cold hard facts, both human and chemical, behind the astounding phenomena without sacrificing any of the wonder--a trait vital to any science writer worth his NaCl. A-" --Entertainment Weekly
"Sam Kean...is brimming with puckish wit, and his love for the elements is downright infectious. Kean's book is so rambunctious and so much fun, you'll find yourself wanting to grab someone just to share tidbits. But the alchemy of this book is the way Kean makes you see and experience and appreciate the world differently, with a real sense of wonder and a joy of discovery, that is downright elemental." --Caroline Leavitt, Boston Globe
"This is nonfiction to make you sound smart over gin and tonics: the human history behind the periodic table." --Time.com
"Sam Kean...has done something remarkable: He's made some highly technical science accessible, placed well-known and lesser-known discoveries in the contest of history and made reading about the lives of the men and women inside the lab coats enjoyable." --Austin American-Statesman
"Fascinating. Kean has Bill Bryson's comic touch when it comes to describing genius-lunatic scientists...The book is not so much a primer in chemistry as a lively history of the elements and the characters behind their discovery." --New Scientist
"A quirky and refreshingly human look at a structure we usually think of as purely pragmatic." --SeedMagazine.com
"[The Disappearing Spoon is] crammed full of compelling anecdotes about each of the elements, plenty of nerd-gossip involving Nobel prizes, and enough political intrigue to capture the interest of the anti-elemental among us. Once you're done with this book, do your chemistry teacher and all her future students a favor, and send her a copy." --Galleycat
"Kean loves a good story, and his account teems with ripping yarns, colorful characters, and the occasional tall tale of chemical invention....let us hope that Kean...continues to bring the excitement of science out of the lab and into the homes of the American reading public." --Chemical & Engineering News
"An idiosyncratic romp through the history of science. The author is a great raconteur with plenty of stories to tell....entertaining and enlightening." --Kirkus Reviews
Book 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.
From the Big Bang to the end of time, it's all in THE DISAPPEARING SPOON.
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful, but...,
By
This review is from: The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements (Hardcover)
With one exception, this book was a delight from cover to cover. Using the elements of the periodic table as his launching points, Mr. Kean take us on a series of exhilarating romps through the history of science, touching on topics as diverse as the search for extraterrestrial life, a backyard nuclear reactor, and the bubbles in a glass of beer. Not since the essays of the late Isaac Asimov have I encountered such an entertaining blend of anecdote and scientific exposition.My delight in the book was muted, however, by an error which is -to say the least - surprising in a professional science writer. Not to put too fine a point on it, there are a number of passages in which the author appears to be unaware of what the word "galaxy" means. In a discussion of the Drake Equation, for instance, he refers to the Solar System as "our own galaxy". In an earlier chapter, he describes the impact of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 on Jupiter as "the first intergalactic collision humans ever witnessed". I am not aware of any astronomical findings that indicate that the comet (or the planet Jupiter!) originated outside the Milky Way Galaxy, and can only ruefully conclude that Mr. Kean is using "intergalactic" as a synonym for "extraterrestrial". For the record, a galaxy is a huge system of stars and other matter, thousands of light-years in diameter and having a mass billions or trillions of times greater than that of our sun. "Galaxy" is not a synonym for "planet" or "solar system", despite what generations of television writers may have taught us. The author of this otherwise fine book should know better.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great,
This review is from: The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements (Paperback)
The book is in great shape. As for the book itself, great, fascinating, very interesting, cant seem to stop reading until the end of a chapter.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Very Lively and Sweeping Portrayal of Science,
By
This review is from: The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements (Hardcover)
This is five-star science writing at its best. Although the book's main theme is the periodic table of the elements - chemistry's rallying point - the scientific fields that are discussed are quite diverse. They include: various branches of physics, geology, palaeontology, biology and several others. But that's not all. The scientific discussions are blended into a backdrop of archaeology, history - from ancient through medieval to modern - as well as the occasional political and social machinations. And last, but definitely not least, the author has enriched almost every page with the ever-present, always-fascinating, often-confrontational and sporadically-baffling human element that many authors often omit.As pointed out by at least one other reviewer, there are some technical errors; I found some in the discussions involving radioactivity and nuclear physics. But these minor shortcomings do not detract from the book's important qualities. The writing style is very lively, friendly, often humorous/tongue-in-cheek, entertaining, widely accessible, never boring and quite captivating. In short: a page-turner. This book can be thoroughly enjoyed by anyone, especially those with a fascination for science: how it works, how some discoveries came about, some of the people involved (ancient to recent) and science's wonderful history. It is also a special treat for science buffs. I believe that this work is an important contribution towards making science understandable and fun for the general population. It may even inspire future Nobel Prize winners. To the author: well done!!
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