The Disappearing Spoon

Remember your favorite chemistry teacher? The one who always anthropormorphized chemical compounds and added drama and flavor to their lectures? This book is a lot like that.

Okay, fine, chemistry is a substantial part of my livelihood, so maybe I have more fond chemistry-based memories than then average person. Nonetheless, The Disappearing Spoon should be as enticing to those who never took a science class outside of distribution requirements as well as those of us whose favorite class was organic chemistry.

To be honest, I was pretty nervous about this book; as a biochemist, it makes me a little uncomfortable to admit that there's anything interesting outside of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen (and a touch of phosphorus and sulfur.) But Kean's writing is the definition of compulsively readable.

Drama is brought by the often argumentative, usually eccentric and always genius scientists who founded the principals of modern chemistry. In addition, each chapter is riddled with historical anecdotes staring a particular element or two. But the real richness of the book comes from Kean's ease with the science itself, describing valence shells, chemical bonds, radioactivity, fusion and fission in accurate, accessible and extremely lively ways.

This was a fairly interesting collection of anecdotes about the role different elements have played historically, as well as how the modern periodic table was developed. There was no real grand narrative to that development, though, which made the book as a whole lack some coherence (which is ironic, as a later chapter discusses coherence as a state of matter). Still, a fun read if you're interested in the topic but don't know much about it.