The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean

The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean

The Periodic Table is one of man's crowning scientific achievements. But it's also a treasure trove of stories of passion, adventure, betrayal and obsession. The infectious tales and astounding details in THE DISAPPEARING SPOON follow carbon, neon, silicon and gold as they play out their parts in human history, finance, mythology, war, the arts, poison and the lives of the (frequently) mad scientists who discovered them. We learn that Marie Curie used to provoke jealousy in colleagues' wives when she'd invite them into closets to see her glow-in-the-dark experiments. And that Lewis and Clark swallowed mercury capsules across the country and their campsites are still detectable by the poison in the ground. Why did Gandhi hate iodine? Why did the Japanese kill Godzilla with missiles made of cadmium? And why did tellurium lead to the most bizarre gold rush in history? From the Big Bang to the end of time, it's all in THE DISAPPEARING SPOON

'With a constant flow of fun facts bubbling to the surfaace, Kean writes with wit, flair and authority in a debut that will delight even general readers' - PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

Sam Kean is a writer in Washington, D.C. His work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Mental Floss, Slate, The Believer, Air & Space, Science and The New Scientist. He is currently working as a reporter at Science magazine and as a 2009 Middlebury Environmental Journalism fellow.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780316051644
ISBN 10	0316051640
Title	The Disappearing Spoon
Author	Sam Kean
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Little, Brown & Company
Year published	2010-07-12
Number of pages	400
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.