Tag Archives: chemistry

Caesar’s Last Breath

Posted on March 11, 2022 by smellincoffee

Caesar’s Last Breath: Decoding the Secrets of the Air Around Us© 2017 Sam Kean384 pages In The Disappearing Spoon, Sam Kean offered a history of early chemistry, as we began to understand the elements that create our world, and the … Continue reading →

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Of Chemie, Cosmos, and Climate

Posted on August 20, 2021 by smellincoffee

What’s Eating the Cosmos tackles some of the big questions in modern cosmology, beginning with the basics — how do we know what’s out there? Where is it, what is it made of? — and continuing onward to the more changing … Continue reading →

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Uncle Tungsten

Posted on May 26, 2020 by smellincoffee

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 →

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The Science of Breaking Bad

Posted on May 23, 2020 by smellincoffee

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 →

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What Einstein Told His Cook

Posted on July 5, 2019 by smellincoffee

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 →

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Stuff Matters

Posted on May 29, 2018 by smellincoffee

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 →

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The Disappearing Spoon

Posted on October 25, 2017 by smellincoffee

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 →

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A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science

Posted on January 31, 2017 by smellincoffee

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 →

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Napoleon’s Buttons

Posted on October 24, 2015 by smellincoffee

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 →

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The Ingredients

Posted on February 11, 2012 by smellincoffee

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 →

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