Sam Kean is in love with the elements. He collected mercury from broken thermometers in childhood and mercury is still his favorite element.  Alchemists considered mercury to be poetic, and Kean agreed, saying “it transcended pedestrian categories of liquid or solid, metal or water, heaven or hell.”  This beginning alerts the reader that his book is a delightful geek fest.

If the Periodic Table seems an unlikely topic to appear on the New York Times’ best seller list, read Kean’s book The Disappearing Spoon.  Concepts of chemistry and physics are interspersed among lively stories.  The stories are the main feature; it is not a textbook. 

In case you haven’t thought about the periodic table in years, it is more than just a funny-looking way to list the elements.  I remember how delighted I was when I learned that elements react the way they do because of their physical structure, the shape of electron shells, and how electrons move within molecules.  The periodic table is a map of atomic structure and every block on the table has a story behind it:  The legend of King Midas’ golden touch may be based on the particularly shiny brass made in his kingdom; a middling professor named Rontgen became every scientist’s hero and won the inaugural Nobel Prize; an Australian gold rush; how lithium works in the brain; and detours into pathological science such as the hunt for megalodon (did you watch Shark Week on cable?)

Kean ventures into physics:  Strong and weak nuclear forces, how radioactive decay allows elements to “jump from one side of the periodic table to the other like a lucky move in Snakes & Ladders”, and yet-unproved “islands of stability” where super-massive atoms would have long half-lives.

Oh – in case you are wondering about the book’s title.  The “disappearing spoon” refers to a lab trick using a tea spoon cast from gallium.  Gallium is a metal that melts slightly above room temperature, so the victim of the prank gets to watch his spoon disappear in his tea as he tries to stir.  Scientists are such fun.