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carlosmartinez's review against another edition
5.0
Popular science at its best! Fascinating, entertaining and clear. A brilliant overview of the major topics in chemistry and physics.
sarahsadiesmith's review against another edition
4.0
For me science giveth and taketh away. I read about it because well it’s the best, it is what life is and it can be so weird and unfathomable but also endlessly interesting. Mostly though it’s something you can prove, there is no ifs and buts and is unshakingly stubborn (which is also incidentally exactly how I like my people). HOWEVER I am never far away from an existential crisis, it lurks on the sidelines, even when I’m not consciously thinking about it I’m sure some unknown part of me is grappling with it. And science tells us, in no uncertain way that there will come a time in which the sun gets low on hydrogen, things will cool, it will contract and then momentarily expand, and basically eat the earth. And it makes exactly no odds to my little brain that this will happen in oh about 4 billion years, the game is done, the odds are stacked, the sky is LITERALLY going to fall in/combust. Plus humanity lately is sort of a colossal bag of dicks, I continue to blame Trump and Boris but really they are just two particularly good examples of the attitudes and incompetence, ignorance, bigotry, arrogance and any number of adjectives just like those that are prevalent in the human race, and the good, decent and smart are being trampled on, I think the odds might be more than a little stacked in that regard to. And I have really gone off on a tangent today.
Elemental deals with the Periodic Table, the elements and it works out as a sort of history of Chemistry. It has ALL the facts, so obviously I’m going to tell you some of my favourite ones. We are made of star dust, legitimately, if you want to go down the route of reincarnation, you’re basically morsels of star carcasses. Which is kind of nice. Everything is composed from the elements, you can break the body down and all there is is a bunch of well chemicals basically.
I don’t exactly know why but I’ve always been fascinated with poisons, and acids and really really flammable things, the radioactive things, the insidious side of nature (I am not an arsonist, nor criminal) and the weird side, things that on the face of it defy the laws of nature. This book is EXCELLENT for this kind of thing. If you had 14g of Botulinum Toxin H you could kill the ENTIRE human race, it’d paralyse everyone to death which seems unpleasant. But Botulinum Toxic A, well that’s Botox. Then there’s polonium, the radioactive element and a wee bit of it’s dust will kill you. 14 bananas a day for a year will contain enough radiation to kill you, funny scientists even have a scale, the BED (Banana Equivalent Dose) to measure radioactivity. Spontaneous human combustion is actually plausible (but unlikely). There’s a chemical, chlorine trifluoride which is so flammable it will set fire to water, glass, Kevlar, more or less everything. Which also sort of renders it useless as it is very hard to keep/transport on account of the whole will burn through everything it comes into contact with. Helium Hydride is the most acidic acid ever but it’s nearly impossible to make, which is for the best. And apart from all those things you can learn about atomic bombs, quantum mechanics, where the term silver screen came from, quantum leaps, electrons, protons, neutrons and quarks (not the weird cheese), diamonds and electricity, and just you know the component parts of what life is and what everything is made of. Chemistry explains it all, and in this book it’s easy enough to follow.
I shall end with one more important fact, the expression mad as a hatter didn’t come from Lewis Carroll, hat makers for a time used mercury nitrate in hat felt. Now mercury is just the right size to fit through membranes surrounding your brain and once in it’ll make you a little batshit. That was in times of yore so doesn’t really explain me. But now you know, no mercury in your hats please. Oh and stop eating apple seeds, they contain cyanide (as do cherry pits, apricot kernels and really quite a surprising amount of things)
Elemental deals with the Periodic Table, the elements and it works out as a sort of history of Chemistry. It has ALL the facts, so obviously I’m going to tell you some of my favourite ones. We are made of star dust, legitimately, if you want to go down the route of reincarnation, you’re basically morsels of star carcasses. Which is kind of nice. Everything is composed from the elements, you can break the body down and all there is is a bunch of well chemicals basically.
I don’t exactly know why but I’ve always been fascinated with poisons, and acids and really really flammable things, the radioactive things, the insidious side of nature (I am not an arsonist, nor criminal) and the weird side, things that on the face of it defy the laws of nature. This book is EXCELLENT for this kind of thing. If you had 14g of Botulinum Toxin H you could kill the ENTIRE human race, it’d paralyse everyone to death which seems unpleasant. But Botulinum Toxic A, well that’s Botox. Then there’s polonium, the radioactive element and a wee bit of it’s dust will kill you. 14 bananas a day for a year will contain enough radiation to kill you, funny scientists even have a scale, the BED (Banana Equivalent Dose) to measure radioactivity. Spontaneous human combustion is actually plausible (but unlikely). There’s a chemical, chlorine trifluoride which is so flammable it will set fire to water, glass, Kevlar, more or less everything. Which also sort of renders it useless as it is very hard to keep/transport on account of the whole will burn through everything it comes into contact with. Helium Hydride is the most acidic acid ever but it’s nearly impossible to make, which is for the best. And apart from all those things you can learn about atomic bombs, quantum mechanics, where the term silver screen came from, quantum leaps, electrons, protons, neutrons and quarks (not the weird cheese), diamonds and electricity, and just you know the component parts of what life is and what everything is made of. Chemistry explains it all, and in this book it’s easy enough to follow.
I shall end with one more important fact, the expression mad as a hatter didn’t come from Lewis Carroll, hat makers for a time used mercury nitrate in hat felt. Now mercury is just the right size to fit through membranes surrounding your brain and once in it’ll make you a little batshit. That was in times of yore so doesn’t really explain me. But now you know, no mercury in your hats please. Oh and stop eating apple seeds, they contain cyanide (as do cherry pits, apricot kernels and really quite a surprising amount of things)
asgard793's review against another edition
4.0
Elemental is written for those seeking an entry point into chemistry. The writing is aimed towards high schoolers and lifelong learners alike. Tim James starts by giving a history of humanity's interactions with nature and its chemicals, with some discoveries being anticipated and others by accident. We learn how we got from earth, air, fire and water to polonium, germanium, carbon and lithium, how we went from silver to the silver screen, and what makes gold so exceptional. James also has fun vignettes where he discusses the most flammable, poisonous and fluid chemicals, and devotes a chapter to his pick for the most important and most underwhelming element(s). The main text is a brisk 161 pages with 6 appendixes. I'll never look at a tin can, a chlorinated pool or my body the same again. Truly a fire-starter for those who want to delve into the subject.
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