This was the May entry for the Science Book Club, and I thought it was outstanding. Kean does a great job of finding interesting stories about the elements that make up the periodic table, as well as the people who worked to discover them.
To be honest, I thought the stories dried up as soon as the focus moved to sythetically-creating a few molecules of a new element in the lab, instead of isolating and discovering the naturally-occurring elements. And the Nobel Prize politics didn't make much of an impression on me. But there are plenty of really good stories here, from Gandhi to Einstein, Hitler to Fermi. There are heroes and villains, unintended consequences galore, and all sorts of interesting stuff in between.
No comments:
Post a Comment