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A review by ptothelo
The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements by Sam Kean
4.0
I really enjoyed it thought it was pretty dense. It also brought back a lot of memories of chem classes and physics classes and how in another life I might have been a physicist. I love how some of this stuff really bends your mind. It a fun mix of science and history and in a way, psychology (of all the scientists).
My favorite story had to be the one where someone melted his friends' Nobel medals smuggled out of Germany so the Nazi's couldn't find it. It sat in a beaker in the lab as an orangish liquid. He went back after the war and isolated the gold again and the Nobel committee recasted the medals. A small and cool act of defiance among all the craziness. And wives trying to shield their husbands from Marie Curie? I never read about this back in HS
My favorite story had to be the one where someone melted his friends' Nobel medals smuggled out of Germany so the Nazi's couldn't find it. It sat in a beaker in the lab as an orangish liquid. He went back after the war and isolated the gold again and the Nobel committee recasted the medals. A small and cool act of defiance among all the craziness. And wives trying to shield their husbands from Marie Curie? I never read about this back in HS