Elementary: The Periodic Table Explained By James M. Russell

The periodic table, created in the early 1860s by Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev, marked one of the most extraordinary advances in modern chemistry. This basic visual aid helped scientists to gain a deeper understanding of what chemical elements really were: and, astonishingly, it also correctly predicted the properties of elements that hadn’t been discovered at the time.

Here, in the authoritative Elementary, James Russell uses his lively, accessible and engaging narrative to tell the story behind all the elements we now know about. From learning about the creation of the first three elements, hydrogen, lithium and helium, in the big bang, through to oxygen and carbon, which sustain life on earth – along with the many weird and wonderful uses of elements as varied as fluorine, arsenic, krypton and einsteinium – even the most unscientifically minded will be enthralled by this fascinating subject. Russell compellingly details these most basic building blocks of the universe, and the people who identified, isolated and even created them. Elementary: The Periodic Table Explained

read Elementary: The Periodic Table Explained

The title is apt, because the book is rather… elementary. Factful, yes. A good enough introduction to the periodic table and elements, but if you’re looking for something new and more in-depth, this might bore you (although it is a fairly quick read).

A stocking filler you can give those who are interested in chemistry. 9781789291025 Here's a fact: This year marks the 150th anniversary of the Periodic Table.
This book, was a pretty nice reading and quite fun too. The discovery of what some of the elements are used for in daily life and also the story on how they were discovered, is very fascinating. The author managed to show that effortlessly and in a very normal way, without marginalizing the scientific aspect of things.

Anyway, kudos Dmitri!
9781789291025 James M. Russell beschäftigt sich in dem Sachbuch Das Periodensystem - 118 chemische Elemente einfach erklärt mit den Grundlagen der einzelnen Elemente. In Anbetracht meines Studiums sowie meiner vorherigen schulischen Laufbahn beschäftige ich mich gerne mit Chemie und habe mich deshalb sehr gefreut, dieses Buch rezensieren zu dürfen.

Russell geht das Periodensystem horizontal durch und widmet jedem Element ca. 3-4 Seiten. Dabei thematisiert er nicht nur deren Eigenschaften, sondern beleuchtet außerdem die historische Perspektive. Ab und zu geht er auch auf gesellschaftliche, biologische und physikalische Sichten ein, sodass man sich ein umfassendes Bild machen kann.

Natürlich waren mir viele Punkte bereits bekannt, aber andere eben auch nicht. Die angewandte Sprache ist wirklich leicht verständlich, allerdings hätte ich mir manchmal bestimmte Fachbegriffe gewünscht, die meiner Meinung nach hätten genannt werden müssen, um die Informationen kognitiv besser vernetzen zu können. Trotzdem kann ich dieses Buch auf jeden Fall empfehlen, da Interessierte hier eine gute Wissensbasis finden, ohne erschlagen zu werden und Fortgeschrittene evtl. einzelne Wissenslücken füllen können. 9781789291025 An enjoyable journey through 118 atomic elements. From Hydrogen to Lawrencium, each chapter's packed of historical anecdotes and fun facts around them. Probably Russell's book just scratches the surface, still it's helpful for newbies to get into the world of atoms. 9781789291025 Russell makes learning fun again (it usually is but still... )! He assumes little prior knowledge of the periodic table and its constituents. Although there are a few verifiable mistakes in this book, it is still full of easy-to-digest, and accurate, information. There is a page or so for most elements: some history of its discovery and an anecdote or two. The whole thing is accessible to the uninitiated... like me!

I'll forget half of it by next week but the effort of explaining the subject matter in simple terms is appreciated.
9781789291025

Just over 150 years ago the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev had the idea of collecting the elements together with similar properties and seeing if he could organise them in diagrammatic form. At this moment in time, only 62 elements had been discovered and no one knew if that was it if there were more to be discovered. He decided to arrange them in order by atomic number in a long line.

The key to his breakthrough was noticing that certain elements had broadly similar properties, so he took his line and started cutting it into shorter sections to line these up. His new table had a series of elements, sodium, lithium and potassium all on the left-hand side. From this, he developed his periodic law that argued that elements with similar properties occur at regular intervals. He published it in 1869 but continued to work on it and it was this extra work that both solved the puzzle but also created more questions. He realised Arsenic was in group 13, but its properties fitted group 15 better, so he moved it along. This left gaps, but in those gaps would be other elements, but these hadn’t been discovered yet.

In 1913 Henry Moseley proved that the order of the periodic table needed to be the atomic number, not the atomic mass, this revelation led to the discovery of more gaps in the table and the only logical thing to conclude was that there were unknown elements that still hadn’t been discovered. This simple table revealed so much about each element, the groups that they occupied and the way that these interacted with each other.

Almost everybody has heard of some of the elements, but there are lots that most people would have never heard of nor were even aware that they existed. Chemists have been discovering them for years, but it is only with the help of this brilliantly conceived table that they knew where to start looking for them. In this book, Russel has ordered them in ascending atomic number and collected some of the histories behind their discovery, a small table of facts and other interesting facts, such as why some elements have an utterly different letter to their given name.

It is a nicely put together little book that gives a good overview of each one of the elements along with detail on how they were discovered and by whom, those that have changed their name, for example, one well know element used to be called wolfram. This is a good place to start, but for those that want much more information than this, I can recommend The Periodic Table by Hugh Aldersey-Williams which is much more expansive. 9781789291025 You would think that this book is a boring summary of all elements but that is not true at all. This book tells the story of all elements. How they are discovered, named and used throughout our history. I want to reread this book immediately, I loved it! 9781789291025 I struggled to find this book here - and no wonder. It's not very popular. This is one of the books that I think of: Why on Earth do we need this in hardcover? Disappointing. It's a brief survey of the known chemical elements. Yes, it's up to date and full of interesting information. But it does not explain some fundamental things - what is a chemical element, what is an isotope, allotrope, it does not give an overview of the different groups of chemical elements etc. This book could have been expanded and written in a better way. 9781789291025 Keeping up with the plan to try lots of different types of genres, this was an interesting book telling the story and key information of every element - the best is still francium though ✅ 9781789291025 Interesting explanation of the periodic table, with quite a bit of history behind the discovery of each element. I appreciate the research done by the author! Although it was sometimes a bit surface level, I think this is good because it pushes the reader to do some homework. Good read for any science enthusiast ! 9781789291025