The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements

From New York Times bestselling author Sam Kean comes incredible stories of science, history, finance, mythology, the arts, medicine, and more, as told by the Periodic Table.

Why did Gandhi hate iodine (I, 53)? How did radium (Ra, 88) nearly ruin Marie Curie's reputation? And why is gallium (Ga, 31) the go-to element for laboratory pranksters?

The Periodic Table is a crowning scientific achievement, but it's also a treasure trove of adventure, betrayal, and obsession. These fascinating tales follow every element on the table as they play out their parts in human history, and in the lives of the (frequently) mad scientists who discovered them. The Disappearing Spoon masterfully fuses science with the classic lore of invention, investigation, and discovery -- from the Big Bang through the end of time.

Though solid at room temperature, gallium is a moldable metal that melts at 84 degrees Fahrenheit. A classic science prank is to mold gallium spoons, serve them with tea, and watch guests recoil as their utensils disappear.

Editorial Reviews

1. "It happens often in biology, but only once in a rare while does an author come along with the craft and the vision to capture the fun and fascination of chemistry. Sam Kean's The Disappearing Spoon is a pleasure and full of insights. If only I had read it before taking chemistry." --Mark Kurlanksy, author of Salt and Cod 2. "The best science writers...bring an enthusiasm for the material that infects those of us who wouldn't usually give a flying proton. Sam Kean...unpacks the periodic table's bag of tricks with such aplomb and fascination that material normally as heavy as lead transmutes into gold. With the anecdotal flourishes of Oliver Sacks and the populist accessibility of Malcolm Gladwell...Kean succeeds in giving us the cold hard facts, both human and chemical, behind the astounding phenomena without sacrificing any of the wonder--a trait vital to any science writer worth his NaCl. A-" --Entertainment Weekly 3. "Sam Kean...is brimming with puckish wit, and his love for the elements is downright infectious. Kean's book is so rambunctious and so much fun, you'll find yourself wanting to grab someone just to share tidbits. But the alchemy of this book is the way Kean makes you see and experience and appreciate the world differently, with a real sense of wonder and a joy of discovery, that is downright elemental." --Caroline Leavitt, Boston Globe 4. "This is nonfiction to make you sound smart over gin and tonics: the human history behind the periodic table." --Time.com 5. "Sam Kean...has done something remarkable: He's made some highly technical science accessible, placed well-known and lesser-known discoveries in the contest of history and made reading about the lives of the men and women inside the lab coats enjoyable." --Austin American-Statesman 6. "Fascinating. Kean has Bill Bryson's comic touch when it comes to describing genius-lunatic scientists...The book is not so much a primer in chemistry as a lively history of the elements and the characters behind their discovery." --New Scientist 7. "A quirky and refreshingly human look at a structure we usually think of as purely pragmatic." --SeedMagazine.com 8. "[The Disappearing Spoon is] crammed full of compelling anecdotes about each of the elements, plenty of nerd-gossip involving Nobel prizes, and enough political intrigue to capture the interest of the anti-elemental among us. Once you're done with this book, do your chemistry teacher and all her...

Readers Top Reviews

awe_las

I'm a chemist and I'm always looking for some scientific books, so when I came upon this one I decided to give it a go. As soon as I started it I got extremely hooked and couldn't stop reading it! It has got a vast amount of curious and scientifically interesting facts and gives a profound insight into the lives of many scientists, not only talking about their main discoveries, but also describing their social interactions and their growing up in a sort of story-telling way that makes each page so interesting! You will be able to learn about the discovery of the elements and will also learn so many fun facts about them! Did you know that berillium has a sweet taste that resembles that of sugar? The book also goes into such diverse topics as nuclear physics and toxicology, always linking an element to an event in history! So, if you're looking for a really interesting scientific book, then do buy this one!

Steve BallAndy MM

The science history is interesting but this book is spoiled by the author not knowing the meaning of English words and using them inappropriately. On most pages there's an instance where he's used one word but means another. E.g., he writes of the "bridges between our physical bodies and our incorporate minds." That one's easy, he means incorporeal. Incorporate isn't even an adjective; it's a verb. In something like, "Mendeleev's craw knew of a particularly intractable exception in the [periodic] table." Here he just doesn't know what craw means, and you can kinda tell what he means but the metaphor is clumsy. "The further you burrow down and parse electrons [...], the fuzzier they seem." By parse it looks like he means 'experimentally investigate the behaviours of'. It's like he wanted to jzeush up his prose by picking one word in each second paragraph and replacing it with a random thesaurus lookup. It's so painful to read! I'm going to persevere because I like the science he's writing about but this lousy editing is jarring. I'm finding something like this on every second page of my Kindle. The publisher is Penguin Random House so they should know better than to publish a book that hasn't been edited or edited so carelessly. This book is turning me into a curmudgeon! Grrrr.

Book SharkSteve B

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 "The Disappearing Spoon" is the absorbing history of the periodic table through the eyes of each chemical element. As the author so eloquently states himself, "The periodic table, is finally, an anthropological marvel, a human artifact that reflects all of the wonderful and artful and ugly aspects of human beings and how we interact with the physical world, the history of our species written in a compact and elegant script". This is science-writer Sam Kean's first book and it's a bestseller; a fantastic science book about the seldom written topic of chemistry. This 416-page book is broken out into the following five parts: Part I. Orientation: Column by Column, Row by Row, Part II. Making Atoms, Breaking Atoms, Part III. Periodic Confusion: The Emergence of Complexity, Part IV. The Elements of Human Character, and Part V. Element Science Today and Tomorrow. Positives: 1. Great science writing, that educates the public through history and clever anecdotes. 2. Turns lead into gold, that is turns a typically dull topic like chemistry into fascinating history. Bravo! 3. Well researched book. This was an ambitious project and Kean succeeds. 4. What a fun way to learn about science. 5. Diverse stories behind every element. Some stories are scary, others hilarious, and some even strange but never dull. 6. Good use of basic chemistry to kick the book off. Carbon's "promiscuity". 7. The scientists behind the elements. The stories, the history, and what lead them to their discovery. Name-dropping at its the best, the greats in science. 8. Very happy to see many of the female scientists get their due and the unique challenges they faced. 9. Ultimately a better appreciation for the periodic table. I will never look at it the same way ever again. 10. Mendeleev the father of the periodic table. The logic used and why his version succeeded where others failed. 11. Great use of other science fields and how they converge to each element. Astronomy, physics, biology, quantum mechanics, paleontology... 12. What would life be without irony? Some of the stories behind the elements are truly mesmerizing. Wars, health, money... 13. The impact of UC Berkeley...a recurring theme. 14. Scientific mistakes that lead to great findings. 15. The most dangerous, the most stable, the most "promiscuous", the most odd, the most useful, the most blank elements are all here. 16. The creation of medical drugs. The chances, risks... 17. The names behind the elements. 18. Money and chemistry. 19. Great industrial applications. Pens, X-Rays, Aluminum... 20. Using elements to establish standards. 21. The present and future of the periodic table. 22. Great links to notes...