Book 60 - Sam Kean "The Disappearing Spoon"

[jazzy_dave]

Sam Kean "The Disappearing Spoon" (Black Swan)




A loose history of the ongoing discovery of the elements and what it means to our understanding of the universe and our place in it. The first couple of chapters are somewhat technical but meant for the layperson, with additional science mixed in as the book goes on so the reader can understand how scientists build on what they know to push the limits further. Some of this is fairly unnerving: currently, work is being done on the possibility that the universal constants on which Einsteinian physics (or any other we know) is built may not hold true throughout the universe or at different times.

The book is laid out rather strangely, with a periodical table on the last two pages (after notes and index and where the reader might never notice it). And this is a case where having the lengthy narrative footnotes located with the main text would have worked better than grouped at the end. Still, lots to learn here, and told with a sense of humor