Murder, Sex, and Adventure in the Periodic Table

Reviewed by Michael Paul Mason
Read more GalleyCat Reviews

As a high school student, my eyes would glaze over every time my chemistry teacher walked over to the Periodic Table of Elements poster. Like my classmates, I had a basic sense of its structure and purpose, but loathed referencing it. The elements seemed so impersonal, utterly disenfranchised from everyday life. Just letters and numbers. How was I supposed to know that there were stories of murder and sex and adventure hiding behind each symbol? I was just taught to count electrons and construct compounds.

Everyone who has ever sat through a similar chemistry class should write a “thank you” note to science writer Sam Kean, whose book, The Disappearing Spoon, brings the periodic table to life. It’s crammed full of compelling anecdotes about each of the elements, plenty of nerd-gossip involving the Nobel prizes, and enough political intrigue to capture the interest of the anti-elemental among us.

With 118 elements currently listed in the periodic table, the task of chronicling their discoveries and applications is nothing short of herculean, but Kean not only accomplishes the labor admirably, but structures it in such a way that makes the journey through the table a joy rather than a slog.

Kean clusters the elements not just by their physics, but by their character. There’s a “Poisoner’s Corridor” chapter that follows a hapless geek into a radioactive misadventure, for example, and a great economics lesson offered through the rise of aluminium. Literature buffs might be surprised to learn of Goethe’s own connections with the early history of the periodic table, from the chapter “Artistic Elements.”

Kean’s great undertaking, however, comes with a slight compromise. The challenge of capturing all the elements in one book lends itself to being more episodic in nature, so that there isn’t a strong storyline that’s followed throughout the course of the book. The end result is the kind of book you can easily pick up at any point, and enjoy throughout. Once you’re done with the book, do your chemistry teacher and all her future students a favor, and send her a copy.

Collective, the tales of The Disappearing Spoon, do, however, convey an uneasy sense of just how many human lives have been lost over our ignorance of the elements. Sure, there are plenty of “exploding lab” incidents throughout history, but there are also mass poisonings and other atrocities that could have been prevented with simple scientific understanding. While Kean leaves readers with a satisfying evolutionary sense of the periodic table and its future, we’re left to daydream about the soup of chemical compounds we all wade in everyday–a topic I can only hope Kean or another similarly-talented writer might soon tackle.

Michael Paul Mason is the author of ‘Head Cases: Stories of Brain Injury & Its Aftermath,’ published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. His work appears in magazines and newspapers, including Discover, The Believer, and NYT. Learn more at michaepaulmason.com

Create a social media strategy, launch your campaign, and track the results in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. The online event and workshop will feature speakers including The Onion‘s Baratunde Thurston (left), Facebook’s Morin Oluwole, and bitly’s Tim Devane. Register now.