By putting over 3,000 years of faces on the search for the elemental principles -- from the Greek philosopher Anaximander, who held that all the material world was made of four "elements", Earth, Air, Fire, and Water; to teams of modern scientists who race to create new elements -- Benjamin Wiker has moved chemistry off the shelf of dry-and-dusty arcania and given the reader a gum-shoe tale filled with odd and interesting characters.
Record details
ISBN:9781883937713 (acid-free paper)
ISBN:188393771X (acid-free paper)
Physical Description:163 p. : ill. ; 22 cm. print
Publisher:Bathgate, N.D. : Bethlehem Books ; San Francisco : Ignatius Press, c2003.
Content descriptions
Formatted Contents Note:
Puzzle -- The first chemists? -- Earth, air, fire, water -- The alchemists -- "This spirit, hitherto unknown" -- The atomists return -- The strange tale of Phlogiston, the element that wasn't -- Mr. Priestly clears things up -- Mr. Cavendish and inflammable air -- Chemistry's French revolution -- A revolution in names -- "Nature never creates other than balance in hand" -- Mr. Dalton and his atoms -- The shocking Mr. Davy -- Guy-Lussac and Avogadro to the rescue -- Things fall into place--triads and octaves -- The mystery solved -- The mystery continues.
Book
