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Tag Archives: chemistry
Uncle Tungsten
Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood © 2001 Oliver Sacks 352 pages No future scientist was ever better primed for the life than Oliver Sacks. You may know him as a neurologist and the author of numerous books … Continue reading
The Science of Breaking Bad
The Science of Breaking Bad © 2019 David Trumbore, Donna J. Nelson 264 pages Yeah, Mister White! Yeah, SCIENCE! Breaking Bad remains the best-scripted, -filmed, and –acted show I’ve ever watched, and no matter how many times I watch a … Continue reading
What Einstein Told His Cook
What Einstein Told His Cook: Kitchen Science Explained© 2002 Richard Wolke369 pages What did Einstein tell his cook? ..I still don’t know. I have learned, however, that it is possible to make a jello out of champagne; that concrete sidewalks, … Continue reading
Stuff Matters
Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World© 2014 Mark Miodownik272 pages Stuff Matters begins with a photo of the authorhaving coffee on the roof of his London flat, the table before him scattered with papers and the … Continue reading
The Disappearing Spoon
The Disappearing Spoon© 2010 Sam Kean400 pages A massive poster of the periodic table is as elemental to the image of a science classroom as the rows of graduated cylinders and microscopes, but there is considerably more to that table … Continue reading
A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science
The Canon: A whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science© 2007 Natalie Angier293 pages Science is amazing! Why is so much of the writing about it so lame? Natalie Angier’s The Canon first reviews the principles of scientific thinking … Continue reading
Posted in Reviews, science
Tagged biochemistry, biology, chemistry, evolution, geology, Physics, science, skepticism
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Napoleon’s Buttons
Napoleon’s Buttons384 pages© 2003 Penny LeCouter Napeolon’s Buttons is microhistory in the truest sense of the world, a mix of science and history that not only dwells on the historical impact of various substances (cotton, sugar, chloroflourocarbons, silk), but examines … Continue reading
Posted in history, Reviews, science
Tagged chemistry, goods/services, history, science
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The Ingredients
The Ingredients: A Guided Tour of the Elements© Phillip Ball 2002216 pages There’s antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium, And hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium […] (Tom Lehrer, “The Elements”). Chemistry is not an arcane subject solely practiced in a … Continue reading