August 1, 2010

Blogging the Periodic Table

Chemist Sam Kean has a book out and he is publishing excerpts at Slate. Check out Blogging the Periodic Table:
Wild, weird, wonderful stories about the elements that make up our universe.
I'm blogging about the periodic table this month in conjunction with my new book, The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World From the Periodic Table of the Elements. Now, I know not everyone has fond memories of the periodic table, but it got to me early�thanks to one element, mercury. I used to break those old-fashioned mercury thermometers all the time as a kid (accidentally, I swear), and I was always fascinated to see the little balls of liquid metal rolling around on the floor. My mother used to sweep them up with a toothpick, and we kept a jar with a pecan-size glob of all the mercury from all the broken thermometers on a knickknack shelf in our house.

But what really reinforced my love of mercury�and got me interested in the periodic table as a whole�was learning about all the places that mercury popped up in history. Lewis and Clark hauled 600 mercury-laced laxative tablets with them when they explored the interior of America�historians have tracked down some places where they stayed based on deposits in the soil. The so-called mad hatters (like the one in Alice in Wonderland) went crazy because of the mercury in the vats in which they cleaned fur pelts.
He is publishing chapter excerpts as blog posts and the book sounds like a real hoot. A good writer. Here is the link to Ytterbium whose fascinating history was new to me. One of my favorite elements is Thorium. I am also fond of the Noble Gases but Sam dismisses them as:
The noble gases, which reside on the East Coast of the periodic table, are its aristocrats�detached and aloof, never bothering to interact with the rabble of common elements that make up the vast majority of the world.
What I love about them is that you can apply electrodes to them and shock them and make them jump around. Your camera's photoflash is filled with Xenon gas. I can think of a Massachusetts yacht owner that I would like to place electrodes on his neck and administer a few lightning bolts. He resembles a certain fictional character a little too well... Posted by DaveH at August 1, 2010 9:05 PM
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