Periodic Tales: The Curious Lives of the Elements

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Aldersey-Williams takes the reader on a personal and emotional journey through the world of several elements along with their discoverers and discovery location. Lively, witty, and filled with the astounding science of ordinary life, Caesar's Last Breath illuminates the science stories swirling around us every second. and "Zzz" moments because of the uninteresting facts or the complicated chemistry terms that I don't understand. A couple of times he tries to recreate certain findings himself at home, as well as visiting famous chemical locations, which come across as genuine curiosity rather than fulfilling a book contract, or just a dilettante exercise in general.

Periodic Tales - Hugh Aldersey-Williams - Google Books Periodic Tales - Hugh Aldersey-Williams - Google Books

Autors pastāsta arī dažus savus eksperimentus, uz kuriem viņu ir pamudinājusi grāmatas sarakstīšana. The A level course is divided in to 3 broad areas with equal weighting over the 2 year course: physical, inorganic and organic chemistry. His ingots — worth a dozen times more than silver — were admired at the Paris Universal Exposition of 1855 by Emperor Napoleon III of France, who offered financial support to Deville. Jācer, ka reiz latviski tiks izdota arī grāmata „ Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the UniverseThe Elements” by Theodore Gray uz kuru „Periodiskās fabulas” pāris reizes atsaucas.Come i vari elementi chimici sono la chiave del progresso per capire il funzionamento dell'universo. Such was the metal's rarity that a renowned goldsmith, Christofle, made hand-crafted aluminium jewellery and tableware, which was favoured at imperial banquets, and an aluminium rattle was given to the emperor's newborn son. After the rise of Adolf Hitler, two of Germany's leading liberal scientists, Max von Laue and James Franck, sent their Nobel medals to the great Danish physicist Niels Bohr for safe-keeping. Although the book is roughly organized by cultural categories, the book still seems a little disconnected throughout. Within the pages of this book I experienced the very same interest, excitement, and knowledge which first sparked my interest in chemistry (and associated sciences) all those years ago.

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

I would highly recommend this book to readers over other similar ones which have a much more scientific focus, checking off elements on a list. By far the most interesting aspect of this work is Aldersey-Williams’s attention to how we, as human beings, attach meaning to the elements, which are objective and uncaring about such signifiers. This is one of the first topics we will study, and these pages should reinforce what you already learned at GCSE.Aldersey-Williams was educated at Highgate School and studied the natural sciences at the University of Cambridge. While he is not always successful in procuring some of the rarer and more volatile elements, his avid curiosity and enthusiasm for chemistry and physics shine through in these lighthearted tales. Due to the scope of this project, I understand that each element could only receive so much attention. The resulting firestorm destroyed much of the city, including the district where Brand had discovered the element, and "melted between 40,000 and 50,000 people," according to the historian Jorg Friedrich.

Periodic Tales by Hugh Aldersey-Williams: review - The Telegraph Periodic Tales by Hugh Aldersey-Williams: review - The Telegraph

That might not sound like too much, until you realise that your chance of getting even one molecule of the original substance in your pill is one in a billion billion billion billion. This wasn't quite as engaging to me as the blurb and the reviews quoted on the cover suggests -- in fact, it started to feel rather meandering -- but it is quite an interesting read, covering both the scientific history of elements, how and when they were discovered, and the social histories, why they were used and for what. I even went outside one evening to stand under a street light to observe its orange sodium-vapor light, emitted at a wavelength of 589 nm. In his 2011 book, Periodic Tales: A Cultural History of the Elements, from Arsenic to Zinc, British author and journalist Hugh Aldersey-Williams examines how we’ve given meaning to the elements.Was there a time when aluminum was more precious than gold, and why do Europeans add an extra ‘I’ to make it ‘aluminium’? That way, if/when things end, you