Dec 02, Kelli rated it really liked it Shelves: childrens. I did not particularly enjoy chemistry, nor do I remember it very well, apparently! There have been some elements added to the periodic table since I was in school, but not as many as I thought.
My 9-year-old son chose this at his school book fair and we have read it from cover to cover. This book is informative and visually interesting. Packed with photo examples of elements in everyday objects and pieces from the I did not particularly enjoy chemistry, nor do I remember it very well, apparently! Making science fun! View all 3 comments. Jul 02, Chris rated it it was amazing Shelves: top-shelf , science , education. The idea was that you sign up and they send you books, once a month, until the series was finished or you decided you no longer wanted to receive it.
The Science series focused on, of course, science, with books devoted to every facet of physics, medicine, chemistry, biology It was a fantastic compendium of human knowledge in those pre-internet days, and I just loved it. I learned about how traveling at lightspeed squashes things by reading a story about spies chasing each other on the Lightspeed Express.
I learned about how different drugs affect the mind and body. I learned about how important the wheel was, what water could do, and how the food we eat determines almost everything about our lives.
My favorite volume of all of them was titled Matter , and it was about all the stuff there is. At the center of it was a pictorial representation of all the elements known to science in Everything from Hydrogen to Uranium and beyond.
I could pore over those pages for hours, amazed by the idea that these things were all there was, made up everything around me. Learning that just six of them Oxygen, Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Calcium and Phosphorus made up most of, well, me was just mind-bending. I don't know where that book is now - probably in a box at my mother's house - but the effect that it had on me has lasted ever since my childhood. In fact, as I was researching this review, I found the place that sells coins stamped from elemental metals and got completely distracted by the struggle to not buy any of them.
Nevertheless, I was thrilled when I saw this book, and had to snap it up as soon as I could. He has made a hobby of trying to collect samples of every element that is is possible to legally own, and he's even built a special table to hold them all. A periodic table, as it were, which won him the IgNobel Prize in Chemistry in He and Nick Mann went through the collection to make outstanding, high-quality photographs and compile them into a fantastic book about "everything you can drop on your foot.
There's also a page explaining the physics behind the shape of the table, what an "electron filling order" is, and why the atomic emission spectrum is so important. Fortunately for us non-professionals, he does this is a way that is amusing and understandable.
Gray knows that his audience isn't professional chemists or grad students - it's people like me. People who are fans of science, but who, for one reason or another, never got into the real nitty-gritty of it. It includes the spectre of the modern age, Uranium, and its evil twin Plutonium. There's Carbon, without which none of us would be here, and Arsenic, which does a fine job of seeing to it that we cease to be.
There's Iron, which we use in abundance, and Dysprosium, which has almost no uses that you've ever heard of. Cesium tells us what time it is, and Krypton, which used to tell us how long things were before we figured out the speed of light. They're accompanied by wonderful photographs that illustrate the applications of each element, as well as diagrams showing its emission spectrum, crystal structure, and other information that you may or may not be interested in.
Regardless of how much you know about chemistry, you should find this to be a fascinating and enjoyable book. Moreover, if you have kids and you want them to be exposed to science in a way that engages their fascination and imagination, then this is the book for you.
Just be ready to raise a science nerd, and if they ask for an elemental coin for their birthday, remember - Lead isn't just for toys anymore! Dec 30, Karissa rated it it was amazing. I am a chemist and have always been fascinated by the Periodic Table of Elements. So, imagine my excitement when I saw this book sitting in the bookstore. Not only does it provide information on all elements in the Periodic Table, it does it in a way that is interesting, accessible, and beautiful.
This is a book that makes you want to touch it and turn the pages, you just can't resist. The picture of the elements are colorful and intriguing; they are all featured on a stylish black backgroun I am a chemist and have always been fascinated by the Periodic Table of Elements. The picture of the elements are colorful and intriguing; they are all featured on a stylish black background Each element features a picture of the element in its purest form.
The side of the page has a small strip that gives lots of technical data. The elements position on the periodic table is showm, atomic weight, density, atomic radius, crystal structure, electron order filing, atomic emissions spectrum, and state of matter are all given in this strip. The rest of the page is given over to a few paragraphs about the element.
Then there are excellent pictures showing instances where the element is used and these pictures also have small descriptions. Most elements are given a two page spread, but some of the lucky elements get 4 pages!
In addition to the individual elements the beginning of the book discusses the different sections of the periodic table and how the periodic table of elements got its shape.
This is more of a coffee table book than an ultimate reference to the Periodic Table of Elements. Although it does provide a lot of information on the Elements. Much of the discussion on each Element is anecdotal and somewhat humorous. This makes the book an excellent reference for the layman interested in Elements, it also makes the book an entertaining read. You would have to go elsewhere to get into the gritty details of some of these elements though Overall I really loved this book.
It is such an awesome book with such neat pictures. Everyone in the house from my computer loving husband to my three year old son has spent time looking through this book. It is just such an interesting book and it is presented in such a beautiful way. Not to mention it is even fun to read! I think everyone should have this book in their house; if nothing else it makes for interesting discussions as you see the bizarre forms of some of the elements.
Jul 21, Carol rated it really liked it Recommends it for: chemistry students, anyone interested in and curious about the world. I think I might go 4. This got great reviews and was recommended for purchase by Jon M. I sat down to catalog it yesterday and ended up pretty much reading the whole thing.
It has been many a year since I had to think about Chemistry, but even if I had zero background in the subject I think I still would have found the book fascinating. First of all, it's just a thing of beauty - black background pages with photos that just pop I think I might go 4. When I picked up this book in the library I skimmed the first couple of pages, looked at a random entry, and really liked what I saw.
When I started reading it, I laughed out loud at the first line: "The periodic table is the universal catalog of everything you can drop on your foot. Gray's humor is wildly uneven and mixes on-target wit with ham-fisted jokes and gratuitous insults aimed at anything he considers silly or stupid. This kind of arbitrary prejudice an When I picked up this book in the library I skimmed the first couple of pages, looked at a random entry, and really liked what I saw. This kind of arbitrary prejudice and bigotry have no place in a book like this.
By way of example, I will quote from the first paragraph about Yttrium the last entry I could stand to read : "Yttrium is something of a hippy element. First, it's named after a village is Sweden, a notably loose country.
Second, it is beloved by new age practitioners A scientist would simply make his case and move on. Confronted by something he did not accept, he would say, "Really?? Show me your data. No, Gray is either terribly insecure and threatened by alien beliefs or he is an agent of science-turned-fundamentalist-religion.
Either way, his comments are unacceptable in a book about real science, even one intended for a mass audience. This is a crushing disappointment. Where Gray is funny, he is funny.
The photographs are gorgeous, the examples are compelling, and the structure of the book overall makes an excellent tour of the elements. And I really enjoyed seeing examples of Gray's fascination with the elements in the carvings and sculptures he has made over the years. Get rid of the frat boy humor and social agenda, and I'd give this five stars in a heartbeat.
View 1 comment. Yes, this is a book about the Periodic Table of elements, you know that thing they made you memorize in school that bored you to tears and that you didn't enjoy at all. This book takes something that many thought was just memorization and boredom and makes it extremely interesting, amusing, fascinating, engrossing, and yes, even educational. The photos are fabulous.
The information is presented in a highly engrossing format. If you have any interest at all in the elements, or are having to study Yes, this is a book about the Periodic Table of elements, you know that thing they made you memorize in school that bored you to tears and that you didn't enjoy at all.
If you have any interest at all in the elements, or are having to study the periodic table and are not enjoying it, then you need this book. It is fabulous. Feb 17, Nick Black rated it liked it Shelves: google-library , snap-crackle-pop-science , read-in-nyc.
Jan 11, Heather rated it really liked it Shelves: non-fiction , science. What can I say? The Periodic Table has never seemed so cool in this gorgeously photographed coffee table book.
Which is truly riveting and awesome in its scope. The photos are well-captioned and help flesh out and complement the brief text essay accompanying each element. A hybrid of trivia and facts mixed together with a liberal dash of dry wit, the text is so quippy and fascinating that for many elements I wished it wasn't so scanty and that there was just You'll definitely find yourself thinking differently about what things are made of after pondering these pages.
A walk through your local home improvement store will certainly never seem the same, that's for sure. Appropriate for science fans, chemistry lovers, and chic geeks of any age. And if you can't get enough, there is a periodic table poster using the photos available separately too.. Praise Praise for The Elements : "I don't know if this is the first coffee-table book paying lush photographic homage to the periodic table, but it is certainly the most gorgeous one I've seen.
Reader Reviews. You Might Also Love. How Things Work Million-copy bestselling author of The Elements, Molecules, and Reactions Theodore Gray applies his trademark mix of engaging stories, real-time experiments, and stunning photography to the…. Molecules In his highly anticipated sequel to The Elements, Theodore Gray demonstrates how the elements of the periodic table combine to form the molecules that make….
Reactions The third book in Theodore Gray's bestselling Elements Trilogy, Reactions continues the journey through the world of chemistry that began with his two previous bestselling…. His book page provides a summary, a video, links to where you can purchase it, and numerous reviews. He also includes a link so you can add the book to your Goodreads bookshelf. The header images represent the venue for where his stories take place. The next author website is an example of infinite scrolling.
Tom Burgess has been establishing his platform for quite some time with two websites FromHeretoProsper. The popular Joanna Penn places the covers of all of her books on one page and hyperlinks each book individually to another page. The pages about her novels have a darker feel to match her J. Penn thriller brand whereas the pages for her nonfiction books match the branding we see on her primary author website.
Here are five suggestions:. Photo: bigstockphoto. I really appreciate the pointers given in this write-up. I currently have a temporary blast website that we are looking to complete in the next few months so the information shared was right on time. I had not considered including testimonials or reviews on the website until now. Thanks for posting this. Great tip.
Plus, having a responsive, mobile-friendly theme is absolutely a must these days. I know this is a post I will be keeping handy for reference, so it is getting bookmarked and shared right away. For the book page, I do something similar to Joanna Penn, but instead of having every cover link to a new page, the link opens a lightbox with product details and a column of sales links at the left.
I think it makes the surfing experience more seamless and also gives a dynamic feel to the site. Dates and details can be changed as conditions change. Having a blog within a website means one less venue for promotion, and more venues mean more presence in search engines and probably more readers. My blogs and websites link to each other where appropriate. I see no advantage to combining a blog with a conventional website.
Thanks for the tips e. All the examples you gave are clear and attractive and worthy of following. My personal challenges are that often books are available in lots of places, so it is tricky to know where to draw the line in providing links to purchase. Amazon complicates things here by having separate sites for each region — at the very least I feel I need two links for it amazon. I also like layouts which only have one column on the right, but found there is often so much that you want to provide easy access to that left and right columns provide double the chance of key items appearing further up.
Karl: Thank you for sharing your feelings here.
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