Summary:
Chapter 7 is where Kean talks about the discovery of the most recent elements. He informs us on a scientist, by the name of Glen Seaborg, who with the help of Albert Ghiorso, discovered many elements at the University of California Berkeley. Kean brings up the fact that these two men were responsible for almost half of the periodic table.
He goes on to talk about the race of the elements that began. Russia saw that the United States, in particular California, was discovering so many new elements that they decided to make it a race. Both labs on different continents were said to have raced to discover new elements before each other. Kean elaborates a predicament that the two labs went through, where they both found the same element , but named it different things. The chemistry committee, IUCAP, decided to name the elements mostly in favor of the Russians which enraged the Americans. America threatened to neglect using the IUCAP's table so the names were changed to satisfy America.
Reflection:
I liked that Kean really went into depth with the naming of all the elements, he could've just said elements 96 to 117 instead. I disliked that the chapter was lengthy. On a night out with bae i would bring up that America threatened not to use the IUCAP's periodic table because its just funny to bring up that American scientists were such divas.
Sunday, August 14, 2016
Chapter 6
Summary:
This chapter of the book, The Disappearing Spoon, Kean continues to talk about the search of the elements. He continues to explain that a scientist, Mosley, figured out that wavelengths are connected to the protons of elements in a mathematical way. Mosley was able to find four elements, but in this era he was not believed to made such huge accomplishments. Kean goes on to tell us that when World War I started that Mosley enlisted; although he was warned, he died in the battlefield. This death caused the other scientists to go further in finding the elements that Mosley was searching for. By 1940, only one element was undiscovered and in 1942 it was discovered, but the group of scientist who found it did not bring it up until 7 years after the discovery.
He goes on explaining that nuclear bombs used to be just a dream, but they were made a reality. Manhattan Project scientists were told to figure out how much plutonium and uranium was needed for a bomb. Both elements were hard to figure out, so wives were brought in to do the math for the scientists. Countless tests brought the scientists the answers they were looking for and thus, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were made. The uranium ore was needed in Tennessee because that was going to be nuclear facility. Speaking of bombs, Kean brought up the fact that cobalt bombs were worse than uranium bombs because cobalt bombs render the soil useless for a century.
Reflection:
This chapter had a lot of information and I liked that it explained how women were the brains in the operation of the Manhattan Project without even knowing it. I disliked that the chapter got redundant after a while; it was constantly about bombs. On a date with bae I would bring up the fact that Cobalt bombs are way stronger than uranium bombs just so I could scare her into not dumping me for knowing about bombs.
This chapter of the book, The Disappearing Spoon, Kean continues to talk about the search of the elements. He continues to explain that a scientist, Mosley, figured out that wavelengths are connected to the protons of elements in a mathematical way. Mosley was able to find four elements, but in this era he was not believed to made such huge accomplishments. Kean goes on to tell us that when World War I started that Mosley enlisted; although he was warned, he died in the battlefield. This death caused the other scientists to go further in finding the elements that Mosley was searching for. By 1940, only one element was undiscovered and in 1942 it was discovered, but the group of scientist who found it did not bring it up until 7 years after the discovery.
He goes on explaining that nuclear bombs used to be just a dream, but they were made a reality. Manhattan Project scientists were told to figure out how much plutonium and uranium was needed for a bomb. Both elements were hard to figure out, so wives were brought in to do the math for the scientists. Countless tests brought the scientists the answers they were looking for and thus, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were made. The uranium ore was needed in Tennessee because that was going to be nuclear facility. Speaking of bombs, Kean brought up the fact that cobalt bombs were worse than uranium bombs because cobalt bombs render the soil useless for a century.
Reflection:
This chapter had a lot of information and I liked that it explained how women were the brains in the operation of the Manhattan Project without even knowing it. I disliked that the chapter got redundant after a while; it was constantly about bombs. On a date with bae I would bring up the fact that Cobalt bombs are way stronger than uranium bombs just so I could scare her into not dumping me for knowing about bombs.
Chapter 5
Summary:
Sam Kean, writer of The Disappearing Spoon, starts this chapter off informing us on the history of chemical warfare. He dates back to the 400s B.C. when Sparta put a siege on, rival city, Athens. Apparently, the Spartans tried to smoke the Athenians out of their homes, but this attempt failed, for it was not strong enough to drive the Athenians from their city. He goes onto to explain that chemical warfare doesn't gain any and that it remain unused up until World War I. The French used chemical's even though they were not supposed to causing war with the Germans. The French thought it best to gas them, but the gassing did not work. The Germans did not even know they were gassed.
Continuing on, Kean brings up a German researcher by the name of Fritz Haber. Haber was a genius figuring out how to make a fertilizer to help keep everyone fed during wars. He then altered his plans and made bombs for the Germans which were then mass produced. The bomb failed, leaving no pain to the people that were bombed. Haber was a failure to Germany and it cost the country a pretty penny. The Germans moved on to build another bomb that was to be used on the Russians, but the temperature in Russia was so cold that the liquid bromine that was supposed to be gas instead froze. In addition to Haber failing, he was excommunicated for being a Jew.
He further explains why the element Tungsten's symbol is a W. The W comes from the German name, Wolfram, which was the wolf that was used during the war. Tungsten soon ran low in Germany, so they asked Portugal, whom was neutral in the war, to supply them with Tungsten. Portugal also supplied Tungsten to the other side of the war which pretty much ran it's economy. Furthermore, Kean pulls out the fact that most of us have tantalum or niobium in our cellphones which came from Congo. Instead of Congo prospering, everyone went crazy. 5 million people died in the 5 years that they were the major contributor.
Reflection:
I liked that this chapter was more about history that I can better relate to. It was so simple to understand. I really disliked that there wasn't a piece on Haber's whereabouts after his excommunication. I learned that chemical warfare had been on the minds of people since the 400s B.C. when Sparta tried to smoke out Athens. If I was having a conversation with bae, I would bring up the history of the symbol, W, for the element Tungsten just because it is so interesting that it is called the wolf.
Sam Kean, writer of The Disappearing Spoon, starts this chapter off informing us on the history of chemical warfare. He dates back to the 400s B.C. when Sparta put a siege on, rival city, Athens. Apparently, the Spartans tried to smoke the Athenians out of their homes, but this attempt failed, for it was not strong enough to drive the Athenians from their city. He goes onto to explain that chemical warfare doesn't gain any and that it remain unused up until World War I. The French used chemical's even though they were not supposed to causing war with the Germans. The French thought it best to gas them, but the gassing did not work. The Germans did not even know they were gassed.
Continuing on, Kean brings up a German researcher by the name of Fritz Haber. Haber was a genius figuring out how to make a fertilizer to help keep everyone fed during wars. He then altered his plans and made bombs for the Germans which were then mass produced. The bomb failed, leaving no pain to the people that were bombed. Haber was a failure to Germany and it cost the country a pretty penny. The Germans moved on to build another bomb that was to be used on the Russians, but the temperature in Russia was so cold that the liquid bromine that was supposed to be gas instead froze. In addition to Haber failing, he was excommunicated for being a Jew.
He further explains why the element Tungsten's symbol is a W. The W comes from the German name, Wolfram, which was the wolf that was used during the war. Tungsten soon ran low in Germany, so they asked Portugal, whom was neutral in the war, to supply them with Tungsten. Portugal also supplied Tungsten to the other side of the war which pretty much ran it's economy. Furthermore, Kean pulls out the fact that most of us have tantalum or niobium in our cellphones which came from Congo. Instead of Congo prospering, everyone went crazy. 5 million people died in the 5 years that they were the major contributor.
Reflection:
I liked that this chapter was more about history that I can better relate to. It was so simple to understand. I really disliked that there wasn't a piece on Haber's whereabouts after his excommunication. I learned that chemical warfare had been on the minds of people since the 400s B.C. when Sparta tried to smoke out Athens. If I was having a conversation with bae, I would bring up the history of the symbol, W, for the element Tungsten just because it is so interesting that it is called the wolf.
Saturday, August 13, 2016
Chapter 4
Summary:
Chapter 4 is where writer, Sam Kean, begins explaining life and how the world became what it is today. He starts off simple with an ideology that everyone has heard of: The Big Bang Theory. He states a mind boggling fact, "They're neither created nor destroyed, elements just are. " This quote begins to make us, the readers, think more about the elements and their placement in the world. He goes on informing on the planets and how the same elements here can have different properties on another planet. He explains the irony of the element uranium being named after the discovery of the planet Uranus because there is zero percent of uranium on Uranus.
Continuing to elaborate on planets, Kean decides to go into depth upon the planets Jupiter and the properties of elements on this gas giant. Jupiter was said to be a star that never made it, but if it were it would be a dwarf star and emit brown light. When the big bang blew, only the most basic elements reached to lengths as far as Neptune. He explains further that the gas giant's most common elements are 90% hydrogen and 10% helium. Kean later brings up the age of the earth which scientist, Clair Patterson, most closely estimated to 4.55 Billion years. He calculated this number by studying "star dust" on meteors and comets that came from the same dust as planet earth.
Moving forward, Kean begins to talk about a father-son duo: Luis and Walter Alvarez. This pair of physicist- geologists found that there was a layer of dust and clay which is in perfect alignment to explain the death of the dinosaurs. Iridium was found in the clay, iridium can only come from asteroids or comets. In the end the pair ended up hypothesizing that the earth seemed to have many of these layers of clay. They thought that there were maybe a huge celestial being but then they would've spotted it by now. They concluded that the earth would over go mass extinction every so often.
Reflection:
This chapter was full of interesting facts that opened my mind to the universe. I disliked the fact that this chapter did not go into so much depth with the Big Bang Theory. I learned many new things, but a memorable fact was that elements were never made nor can they be destroyed. On a night out with bae, I would bring up the fact that the history of the world is unknown so I can bring in a cheesy pun such as "just like the infinite love I have for you."
Chapter 4 is where writer, Sam Kean, begins explaining life and how the world became what it is today. He starts off simple with an ideology that everyone has heard of: The Big Bang Theory. He states a mind boggling fact, "They're neither created nor destroyed, elements just are. " This quote begins to make us, the readers, think more about the elements and their placement in the world. He goes on informing on the planets and how the same elements here can have different properties on another planet. He explains the irony of the element uranium being named after the discovery of the planet Uranus because there is zero percent of uranium on Uranus.
Continuing to elaborate on planets, Kean decides to go into depth upon the planets Jupiter and the properties of elements on this gas giant. Jupiter was said to be a star that never made it, but if it were it would be a dwarf star and emit brown light. When the big bang blew, only the most basic elements reached to lengths as far as Neptune. He explains further that the gas giant's most common elements are 90% hydrogen and 10% helium. Kean later brings up the age of the earth which scientist, Clair Patterson, most closely estimated to 4.55 Billion years. He calculated this number by studying "star dust" on meteors and comets that came from the same dust as planet earth.
Moving forward, Kean begins to talk about a father-son duo: Luis and Walter Alvarez. This pair of physicist- geologists found that there was a layer of dust and clay which is in perfect alignment to explain the death of the dinosaurs. Iridium was found in the clay, iridium can only come from asteroids or comets. In the end the pair ended up hypothesizing that the earth seemed to have many of these layers of clay. They thought that there were maybe a huge celestial being but then they would've spotted it by now. They concluded that the earth would over go mass extinction every so often.
Reflection:
This chapter was full of interesting facts that opened my mind to the universe. I disliked the fact that this chapter did not go into so much depth with the Big Bang Theory. I learned many new things, but a memorable fact was that elements were never made nor can they be destroyed. On a night out with bae, I would bring up the fact that the history of the world is unknown so I can bring in a cheesy pun such as "just like the infinite love I have for you."
Chapter 3
Summary:
This chapter was all about the discovery of many of the different elements that we know of today. Writer, Sam Kean, starts off talking about the Bunsen burner. He goes on explaining that chemist Robert Bunsen did not really invent the burner, but he brought different ideas together to make the Bunsen burner we know today.
Now that he was speaking of false inventors, he begins to speak about Dmitri Mendeleev - more commonly known as the father of the periodic table. He continues to state that Mendeleev was wrongly named the inventor of the table. Like Robert Bunsen, Dmitri Mendeleev did not invent the periodic table, but he did make enormous contributions to it. He goes on to explain that Dmitri was a Russian chemist and the youngest of 14 children. His father died during his childhood and his mother died shortly after he was enrolled to college. He was credited with finding out that there were many more elements that had not yet been discovered.
Once scientist saw his idea of the periodic table, they built on it looking for more elements to fill in the blanks. Scientist, Lecoq de Boisbaudran, discovered the element gallium, which Mendeleev knew existed but never found. Across the Baltic Sea in 1701, teenager Jonah Friedrich Böttger was forced to find porcelain in order no to be hung for lying about being able to make gold. In the process he was an apprentice to a scientist and together they discovered many of the elements that Mendeleev could not.
Reflection:
Writer ,Sam Kean's side notes, are really interesting to hear because he was able to write this book with the help of other chemists. I disliked that the chapter wasn't longer to give more information about the scientist that helped him with Ytterby. I learned that Mendeleev was not really the inventor of the periodic table. I was honestly flabergasted in the fact that I believed he was the creator this whole time. On a date with bae, I would bring up the fact that Mendeleev wasn't the actual father of the periodic table because that honestly surprised me.
This chapter was all about the discovery of many of the different elements that we know of today. Writer, Sam Kean, starts off talking about the Bunsen burner. He goes on explaining that chemist Robert Bunsen did not really invent the burner, but he brought different ideas together to make the Bunsen burner we know today.
Now that he was speaking of false inventors, he begins to speak about Dmitri Mendeleev - more commonly known as the father of the periodic table. He continues to state that Mendeleev was wrongly named the inventor of the table. Like Robert Bunsen, Dmitri Mendeleev did not invent the periodic table, but he did make enormous contributions to it. He goes on to explain that Dmitri was a Russian chemist and the youngest of 14 children. His father died during his childhood and his mother died shortly after he was enrolled to college. He was credited with finding out that there were many more elements that had not yet been discovered.
Once scientist saw his idea of the periodic table, they built on it looking for more elements to fill in the blanks. Scientist, Lecoq de Boisbaudran, discovered the element gallium, which Mendeleev knew existed but never found. Across the Baltic Sea in 1701, teenager Jonah Friedrich Böttger was forced to find porcelain in order no to be hung for lying about being able to make gold. In the process he was an apprentice to a scientist and together they discovered many of the elements that Mendeleev could not.
Reflection:
Writer ,Sam Kean's side notes, are really interesting to hear because he was able to write this book with the help of other chemists. I disliked that the chapter wasn't longer to give more information about the scientist that helped him with Ytterby. I learned that Mendeleev was not really the inventor of the periodic table. I was honestly flabergasted in the fact that I believed he was the creator this whole time. On a date with bae, I would bring up the fact that Mendeleev wasn't the actual father of the periodic table because that honestly surprised me.
Chapter 2
Summary:
In chapter 2 of the book, The Disappearing Spoon, writer Sam Kean begins speaking about the longest words in the world. At first I am not surprised cause I knew both of the words he brought up because my third grade teacher taught them. He then moves on to the fact that if words can just be put together, then there are words in chemistry that are pact with words. The first words he brings up is the name of a protein, and the name is a lengthy 1,185 letters. After that he moves onto a word that has 189,819 letters and I was just flabbergasted. From talking about the longest words he goes back down to a word that contains forty-five letters. This word has another words inside it that means a lung disease. People acquire this lung disease by inhaling SiO2, or silicon dioxide, which is a key component of glass.
Then, while talking about silicon, he brings up two scientists: Bardeen and Brattain. These two men found silicon too brittle and difficult to purify to work as an amp. They decided to use a much better germanium that was loser fit. When talking about these, Kean goes into detail that all of the elements in a column, or group, were similar in properties, but they were very different physically. Bardeen and Brattain end up making a transistor and their co-worker, who was in Paris at the time, rushed home and began taking all the credit. Shockley, the credit thief, ended up winning the Nobel prize with both of the scientists in 1956. In the end, silicon was too cheap and too available and germanium lost its place.
Reflection:
This chapter was full of knowledge that was up for grabs. The thing I honestly like the most was how the chapter just flowed. Sam Kean went from long words to silicon to scientists using germanium and then later going back to silicon. I disliked that the chapter was very run-on and I became bored at times. I learned that even doctors will take credit for something they did not take part in and that saddens me. If I was going to tell bae one interesting fact it would probably be that there was a word that contained 189, 819 letters because then I would crack a cheesy joke like "The word feels eternal, like our love."
Chapter 1
Summary:
This chapter was mostly about certain rows in the periodic table and certain elements that are in the given rows. First of all, to better explain the periodic table, writer, Sam Kean, mentioned that the table was like a castle and that the elements were the building blocks. He also made it clear that if any of the blocks weren't there, that the castle could not stand. This example made the idea of the periodic table more understandable. Now that the periodic table is easier to understand he goes on to speak of different columns of elements on the table. He goes on about the noble gases and the halogens and later the alkali metals explaining that each column of elements shares certain properties.
With it being obvious that the elements share properties, it was Kean's idea to move more deeply into certain elements. He goes on to explain how fascination helium- one of the purest elements- actually is. He states that helium is one of the purest substances and that it is impossible to break down this element. Helium is in the column of elements called the Noble Gases. The Noble Gases are all elements that are specifically gaseous such as neon, argon, and obviously helium. He then talks about how the element, helium, is made up of particles called electrons, protons, and neutrons. The understanding of these is that the electrons circle the nucleus where the protons and neutrons are. The electrons circle the nucleus in levels, and in the first level there are two spaces. Helium only has two electrons making the element independent because it does not need to share electrons.
After the explanation of helium, Kean begins to talk about scientists that are important to the field of chemistry: Gilbert Lewis and Maria Goeppert. Lewis was an amazing scientist to explain how the periodic table worked. He was able to work and settle down at UC Berkeley where he was later denied from getting the noble prize many times. It seemed that he just wasn't important enough and so the committee never awarded him. Also, Maria Goeppert was usually denied because of her gender, but she was a scientist who did whatever she could, even if she was her husbands shadow.
Reflection:
The chapter, overall, was very interesting and insightful. It made the periodic table even more to clear to me now than before. I liked how much detail writer Sam Kean got into when explaining the element helium. I was actually surprised, for I did not know that helium was independent; the idea never dawned on me. I honestly disliked the length, but I suppose more words equals more information. On a night out with bae, I would most likely bring up the fact that helium can't be broken down just so I could put in a cheesy joke. For example, "Helium is an unbreakable element, just like our love."
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