The Elements: A Visual History of Their Discovery

A hefty book with a "coffee table" feel: lots of pictures, especially old woodcuts, stock photos, etc. The emphasis is more on "sizzle" than "steak," but it does have a good deal of information on the history of the elements. Not much scientific content: as the title indicates, it's about the history of their discovery. I was a bit disappointed to find that it's nowhere near complete. More than half the elements are mentioned, but a lot of them aren't. For example: nickel has a history that's just as interesting as cobalt, but it's not mentioned at all. And we don't hear about how the final cisuranic gaps in the table were at last filled in (by astatine and promethium): so recently that when I was in school, they were still blank!Another disappointment was that it doesn't do a very good job with the history of the periodic table. We go directly from Mendeleev's original table (laid out quite a bit differently from the one we're used to) to the current version, with no steps in between. Every science classroom has one of those posters at the front of the room (for perusing during a dull class), and it would have been nice to see how it changed, decade by decade. And the table in the book makes no attempt to explain what a "transition metal" is (what's it transitional between?). And what's "post" about a post-transition metal?Even if you prefer Kindle to paper books, this one still worth getting on paper, since you would miss most of the visibility of the pictures in an electronic format. Don't expect much in the way of chemistry, but it's more interesting than most books that you can put on your coffee table.

Again, with a careful edition and research, Ball presents a beautifully crafted book with reproductions of original texts, illustrations, and quotes. His texts describe the quest of discovering, using, and organizing the stuff that makes the world and the universe—a beautiful book in many ways.

Patchy account of the “Elements.” Pitch at senior school -level readers.The accounts seemed abbreviated. Much of the interesting stuff about individual elements was missing , such as stability, radio-disintegration, and other properties.