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Science Books Media Book Reviews

Nature's Building Blocks 113

Posted by timothy from the of-which-the-news-has-come-to-harvard dept.
The redoubtable Stella Daily writes: "For many, the word 'chemistry' brings up deliberately suppressed memories of acid-base titrations and annoying stoichiometry problems. 'Nature's Building Blocks' by John Emsley has the singular ability to take chemistry out of the tedium of the high school lab and bring to the reader the sort of childlike wonder that pioneering chemists like Mendeleev and Lavoisier must have had when making their discoveries." She's got a bit more to say about this book, below.
Nature's Building Blocks
author John Emsley
pages 539
publisher Oxford University Press
rating 8
reviewer Stella Daily
ISBN 0-19-850341-5
summary Bedtime stories for chemists

From actinium to zirconium, Emsley covers each of the elements of the periodic table in alphabetical order and includes a short section on the periodic table arrangement itself. Though the result looks rather formidable at 500-plus pages, Nature's Building Blocks is less like a college chemistry text (or the staple of every chemist's bookshelf, the CRC Handbook), than like a collection of bedtime stories. For one thing, the book need not be read front to back; just pick an element, any element, and start wherever you like; it's not even necessary to read any chapter beginning to end. Each is broken down into cleverly named subtopics such as "Human Element," "Economic Element," and by far the most fun, "Element of Surprise." Besides information on the history, uses, origin, and chemistry of each element -- all of which are a pleasure to read -- Emsley uses the "Element of Surprise" section to present the reader with facts that range from the commonsensical "I never thought of that!" variety to the utterly unexpected and fascinating. The gee-whiz quality with which he writes is truly refreshing.

The book demands about a high-school knowledge of chemistry, though many sections can be read without even that much, and even lifelong chemists will find it full of surprises. The stories and facts gathered therein include the clever way Niels Bohr is said to have hidden his gold Nobel Prize medal from the Nazis when he fled Germany, how nonstick Teflon sticks to aluminum frying pans, how magnetic mines work, how the British government accidentally killed 31 of its own citizens with silver iodide, and, in the "Who Knew?" category, the fact that a piece of indium metal lets out a high-pitched shriek when bent. As you read, don't be surprised to find yourself saying the words "Too cool" aloud fairly frequently.

So why does this book get an eight instead of a nine or ten? Unfortunately, Emsley is a lot better at talking about the elements' history, usage, etc. than he is about their chemistry. He often seems to be unsure of whether the reader is a knowledgeable chemist or reading about the subject for the first time; in the chapter on silicon, for example, he explains why silicon dioxide is a neutral compound -- a no-brainer for anyone who's had high school chemistry -- but two paragraphs later says that silicon is part of n- and p-type semiconductors without explaining what the heck an n- or p-type semiconductor is. Elsewhere, the text contains serious errors that any half-decent copy editor should have caught. The periodic table section of the book contains the phrase, "Most hydrogen atoms consist of a single proton." In context, he means hydrogen as opposed to deuterium or tritium, whose nuclei contain neutrons in addition to protons, but a hydrogen atom consists of a single proton and an electron; a single proton is a hydrogen ion. This sort of careless error is common enough to be seriously annoying (and possibly deceiving to the chemistry beginner).

Though it must be read with the proverbial grain of sodium chloride, Nature's Building Blocks is a worthy read indeed -- the kind of book that can get people excited about a subject that usually inspires groans and protests of "I hate chemistry!" And for that, this former chemist is grateful indeed.

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Nature's Building Blocks

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  • I recommend "The Chemistry of Powder and Explosives" for interesting chemical reading.
  • Everyone knows that the fundamental building blocks of life are Lego Mindstorm! ; - )
    • Not if the Denny's restaurant chain has anything to say about that...

      For a while, they were offering a kid's toy (PowerRings, IIRC) that advertized themselves as "Nature's Building Blocks." That's what this story first reminded me of...

  • Getting sick of it (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    it?s not even necessary to read any chapter beginning to end

    Is this a cute way to sidestep the "it's vs. its" question, or are people really embracing Microsoft's braindead extensions to the ASCII character set?

  • One Word. (Score:2, Funny)

    by ultramk ( 470198 )
    Titrations.

    What a great word.
  • I've been wanting to read up on Turbonium!
    • It's not in the book but there's plenty of literature at your VW dealer. If they have been in business a while they may have a Quantum mechanic, as well.
  • Books like these are why
    I dropped High-school Chemistry
    and ran headlong into Physics...
    MUCH more enjoyable and didn't have
    to memorize no damn periodic table!

  • Cool! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Qwerpafw ( 315600 ) on Thursday May 02, 2002 @12:32PM (#3451504) Homepage
    I always wished there was a good "cool facts" chemistry book. Right now you have to google for it if you want some useful and interesting information, and even then you get a bunch of junk.

    Plus this is definately a must-buy at my old high school. Every kid had to do a project on an element--this book would basically do the work for you :).

    I'm getting my copy next time I find myself in a bookstore.

    • Re:Cool! (Score:5, Informative)

      by dracken ( 453199 ) on Thursday May 02, 2002 @12:53PM (#3451649) Homepage
      There has always been "cool facts" chemistry books. Isaac Asimov's "Building Blocks of the Universe" and "The Search For The Elements" [barnesandnoble.com] were published in the early 60's. His style is absolutely engaging as he takes up elements in the periodic table, and tells a story about their origin, discovery, properties and uses. These books might be old (and slightly outdated as several elements have been discovered since then) but I still vividly remember the thrill that I had while reading them.

      "Nature's Building Blocks" might be good - but sorry, its prior art. Isaac Asimov did it first - same style, same layout. IMHO there is no better scientist cum story teller better than asimov.

      -Dracken.
    • There's alot of cool books out there on chemistry and othere subjects.


      Some cool places:

      1. http://www.amasci.org
      2. http://www.lindsaybks.com/prod/index.html
      3. http://www.wikipedia.com
      4. http://www.google.com ( and much much more )


        1. Have fun..

  • ...is from the end of The Elements [clara.net], Tom Lehrer's parody of Gilbert and Sullivan's "Modern Major General."

    I used to have a recording of a Pharmacia chemist singing it with his barbershop quartet [mlive.com], but someone stole it and left 4 other CDs behind. Go figure.

    • The full lyrics of the song are the opening of the book. Gotta love Tom Lehrer.

    • Hehe...I'd never heard of Lehrer's version, but I used to use the same tune as a mnemonic device in high school: the first few elements fit fairly nicely into it, in order:

      There's hydrogen and helium and lithium, beryllium,
      And boron, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen, and fluorine,
      There's neon and there's sodium, magnesium, aluminum, there's silicon and phosphorus and sulfur, chlorine, and argon...

      I'll spare you the rest. Saved my life on exams, though. I just hope I never hummed out loud.
  • I never found stoichiometry problems annoying, let alone difficult.

  • Yeah. (Score:1)

    by Byteme ( 6617 )
    Just about anything is a better read than the CRC Hanbook. :)~



    On a similar subject (digestable, lay science reads) try Six Easy Pieces by Richard P. Feynman and The Divine Proportion : A Study in Mathematical Beauty by H. E. Huntley.

  • Bah, nothing is more interesting than the CRC handbook of organic compounds. OK, LSD is strangely missing but it's more adventure to figure out the process thru related lysergic compound synthesis.

  • yeah, but can he bust a rhyme real proper-like? (Score:3, Funny)

    by cheesyfru ( 99893 ) on Thursday May 02, 2002 @12:45PM (#3451606) Homepage
    Sure, it's hard to put down a copy of "The Shocking History of Phosphorus". But when it comes to relating to the kids of today and teaching them science, nobody kicks it like MC Hawking [mchawking.com]. As an example of his clear and concise educational style, explaining the difficult concept of entropy:
    Creationists always try to use the second law,
    to disprove evolution, but their theory has a flaw.
    The second law is quite precise about where it applies,
    only in a closed system must the entropy count rise.
    The earth's not a closed system' it's powered by the sun,
    so fuck the damn creationists, Doomsday get my gun!
    That, in a nutshell, is what entropy's about,
    you're now down with a discount.

    • I've always wondered why creation theory is always laughed at and not actually pondered more on sites like Slashdot. I mean, isn't part of an education and learning about the world around us being at least open to discussion of opposing viewpoints?

      But nowadays, it's almost cliche to condescendingly deride a person or idea of faith.

      Instead, how about reading a bit about Creationism [scientific...ionism.org] or arguments [creationscience.com] against evolution.

      I know this will be modded down since the idea of God is verboten among the /. intelligentsia, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

      • Eh, I'll bite on this one.

        "Creationism" is laughed at by science-y types because it's not science. Science consists (nominally) of some ever-changing theories and a mountain of experiment to back it up. Creationism consists of a Great Big Book of Immutable Theory, which is never to be tested or modified.

        "Creation theory" is laughed at because it is laughable to put it in the same category as an actual scientific theory, which, while it may be incomplete, is a damned sight better than "a superhero from outer space did it".

        --grendel drago
        • I beg to differ with your cavalier dismissal of creation science - it is not as you characterize it. Of course there are charlatans in all areas of science, and creation science is sadly not free of them either. But then again neither is evolution science (can you say Piltdown Man?).

          How about science based on articles published in Science and Nature - would that qualify as main-line enough for you? One now-revealed creation scientist did so for about twenty years or so; and his experimental results showed that the earth was formed very rapidly, not over (m|b)illions of years.

          Check it out here [halos.com] if you are willing to open your mind and see that there is something to investigate and learn from.
          • As for Piltdown man---it was eventually shown to be wrong. Science can be wrong---then theories are rewritten and reconsidered, and new hypotheses are proposed.

            If the research you refer to has merit, good for him. (I'm not an earth-scientist; I'll trust the judgment of those journals.) Showing that the earth is young (though there are a lot of other thing that would seem to show an older earth, like radioactivity-dating or stars more than five thousand light-years away) doesn't show that the earth was created by a superhero from outer space.

            The reason why creation science gives me the creepies is because it picks a full-blown story and looks for evidence to support it, so that "earth is young!" means "superhero from outer space!". Religion and science do not mix, and any attempt to make them do so destroys the credibility of both components.

            I mean, I take a few issues with the young-earth theory, too, but I can't refute any of that, not being an expert.

            --grendel drago
            • Piltdown man was indeed shown wrong, but over forty years after the fact. And while Nebraska Man was not a deliberate hoax, the construction of exhibits showing a male and female in an environment based on one tooth is a bit of a stretch. Particularly when it turns out the tooth was from a pig extinct in the area (although that type of pig is still found in South America). Point being, unwarranted extrapolation is error on whichever side does it.
              though there are a lot of other thing that would seem to show an older earth, like radioactivity-dating
              Radiometric dating has so many anomalies that it isn't anything like a reliable test. Although if you think it is, it's a great proof of a young earth. For example, C14 has a half-life of roughly 5730 years. So past 50,000 or 100,000 years back, the amount of C14 should be unmeasurable to zero.

              So why do all known coal deposits have C14 activity? Evolutionist science says these deposits are from the carboniferous era, roughly 320 million years ago.

              And while you certainly have a good point that starting from an assumption and moving toward it by picking facts is not good science, that's human nature. It happens in evolution science as well as in creation science. For example, the forward to the 100-year anniversary edition of Darwin's book "On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life" has this to say
              "Evolution is unproved and unprovable. We believe it only because the only alternative is special creation, and that is unthinkable." -Sir Arthur Keith
              So evolution also, as you put it, "picks a full-blown story and looks for evidence to support it". That's a failing of both sides of this controversy; and that makes it hard to use that as a point of dismissal for either one.
        • "Creation theory" is laughed at because it is
          laughable to put it in the same category as an
          actual scientific theory, which, while it may be
          incomplete, is a damned sight better than "a
          superhero from outer space did it".

          There's no doubt a good reason why Scientific Creationism is found in the Library of Congress classification system with the prefix of BS.

          Where's there's smoke, there's incomplete combustion.
      • But nowadays, it's almost cliche to condescendingly deride a person or idea of faith.

        This is true, and I see it all the time here on Slashdot. Posts that are clearly flamebait wind up as insightful, under the assumption that such posters are speaking for the majority.

        As much as these people would like to think that the entire Slashdot community shares identical views on these types of subjects, let me just remind them that every time such an article comes up there are always 1000+ comments. It is clear that the discussion is not over.

        • Re:Fuck the damn creationists? (Score:1, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. (2 Peter 3:3-4, KJV)

          But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Corinthians 2:14, KJV)
      • I would doubt that the idea of God is verboten among /. intelligentsia, just the idea of Creationism. You might wish to look up theistic [theistic-evolution.com] evolution [talkorigins.org]. I have little doubt many /.ers believe in God, but I highly doubt many of them are Christian fundamentalists.
      • I have a similar problem with the song "Fat" by "Weird Al" Yankovic. I am at least five-hundred pounds overweight. Like the character in his "Fat" video, I too have lost buttons on my tight leather suit due to the rapid expansion of my midsection, and I think it hits a little too close to home.

        Come on, guys, Frank Zappa, Ray Stevens, this type of stuff isn't funny. And Doctor Dimento, if you read slashdot, you're just as bad for encouraging them.

  • Chemistry (Score:2, Funny)

    by Thyrsus ( 13292 )
    Ah yes; I remember getting A's in Chem 101 and 102, with the exception of the labs, where I got low C's, maybe even D's, after putting in too too many hours to count. In hindsight, I can't distinguish very well between titration and hazing rituals. That and physics labs taught me that the universe is well ordered -- but only for those with the most expensive, automated equipment.

  • Other books which mix chemistry with biography (Score:3, Informative)

    by StupendousMan ( 69768 ) on Thursday May 02, 2002 @12:55PM (#3451669) Homepage
    I enjoyed reading two other books which blend heavy doses of chemistry with the story of a boy's journey through adolescence:

    "The Chemical Elements", by Primo Levi, describes his experiences as a young Jew in Nazi Germany. I especially like his struggle when asked by the authorities to figure out how to improve the processing of some sort of metallic ore: he was fascinated by the intellectual puzzle, but, of course, determined not to help the enemy. The fact that he was essentially a prisoner of the German army at the time adds an extra element of suspense.

    "Uncle Tungsten", by Oliver Sacks, follows an English boy through roughly the same period of time.

    Both are chock full of the sort of fascinating chemical facts described in this review, but they feature compelling human stories as well. It doesn't hurt that Levi and Sacks are damn good writers :-)

  • Back in the day when I was 15 or so I obtained a copy of a book called 'The Anarchists Cookbook' .. The best Chemistry book I ever owned .. Now it didn't cover all of Natures building blocks .. although there is alot to be said from a 'hands on' learning approach .. I remember searching all summer for a strip of 'Magnesium' to ignite the Thermite powder I had created .. Lucky for me my first Chemistry class in highschool started that September .. Magnesium wasn't that hard to come by after all :)

  • What about Librium, polonius, and steponum? (Score:3, Informative)

    by LauraLolly ( 229637 ) on Thursday May 02, 2002 @01:08PM (#3451757)
    If you want bedtime stories for scientists, try Tom Weller's Science Made Stupid, with its wonderful, side-splitting in jokes.

    When I was teaching high-school chemistry, I would have loved this book as a starting reference for my students. Yes, they had to do "report on an element", but we always had much more fun with "report on industrial process."

    Finally, who could forget Illudium pu236, the shaving cream atom?

  • He wrote a guide to chemisry and the periodic table that taught me more than any high school chemistry class. In eigth grade, too.
  • I've wanted a book like this for a while; I'm off to fatbr- er, Barnes and Noble.
    But before I go, I'll suggest to one and all Mendeleyev's Dream by Paul Strathern. I somehow got the impression from the online blurb that it was similar to this book; a history - and breakdown - of the PTE. It's not; however, it's a fascinating read on the history of chemistry, even for those of us who know little of the subject.

  • titration, and tungsten (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tps12 ( 105590 ) on Thursday May 02, 2002 @01:48PM (#3452030) Homepage Journal
    Oh, man. This brings back memories, alright. Good memories. Titrations all the time. I don't know about anyone else, but there is something about phenolpthaline (sp!!!) in general and acid-base titrations in particular that is just so satisfying, even if you are not the kind of cowboy who knows exactly when to flip the lever.

    And tungsten, damn. That element rules. Highest melting point, IIRC. Also known as "wolframite".

    I loved high school chemistry so much, I almost made the mistake of becoming a chemical engineer. I know, I know. Damn, good times.

  • I have my own bedtime stories: Szabo and Ostlund's Modern Quantum Chemistry. Sure, it's not that modern anymore, but it's still a vital read. Plus, it's a Dover Classic, the godsend of all physics/chemistry students. Half my shelves seem to be Dover Classics.

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