The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements, a national bestseller by Sam Kean, breaks down the periodic table and explains chemistry, an often exasperating subject, in a funny and comprehensible way. Kean, who has been featured in numerous science journals and the New York Times Magazine, demonstrates how chemistry is applied in the real world by giving amusing anecdotes rather than the generic and boring applications, such as how Billy and Pablo used chemistry to make a baking soda and vinegar volcano for their fourth grade science fair, that textbooks typically provide. Each chapter explores different elements on the periodic table; the tenth chapter, “Take Two Elements, Call Me in the Morning,” discusses the positive and negatives effects of the applications of certain elements as medicines.
Specifically, “Take Two Elements, Call Me in the Morning” explores such situations of the elements copper, vanadium, gadolinium, silver, sulfur, and rhodium. The chapter begins by explaining applications of silver, copper, vanadium, and gadolinium as medicines and antiseptics and describing their benefits and consequences. The following section in the chapter discusses chirality, or handedness. Virtually every protein in every life form has a left-handed twist to it. When this was discovered by Louis Pasteur, it changed modern medicine. Also discovering something that would have a great impact on modern medicine was Gerhard Domagk, whose daughter tripped down a staircase while holding a sewing needle which then punctured her hand and snapped off inside of her. Although the shard was removed, the injury became infected. This spurred Domagk to research ...
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...n of chemistry, I enjoyed the more complex parts related to the subject, but even a student who has minimal experience with chemistry will enjoy the chapter and its amusing stories about what just seem to be normal elements. Though some people may feel discouraged from reading the chapter because it is educational, they should not because unlike most educational texts, it does not feel as if information is being thrown at the reader. Its casual and sometimes crude tone make it more humorous, entertaining, and like a novel. The author’s enthusiasm is contagious and makes the reader want to hear him out and see what he is so passionate about. The author conveys and uses anecdotes and pure chemistry to back up the message that in some circumstances, what may seem bad can become good, and vice versa—a lesson that is not only applied to chemistry, but to life in general.
" Journal of Chemical Education 49.3 (1972): 174.
When reading How to Read Literature Like a Professor along with The Alchemist, or any book for that matter, readers are able to dig deeper between the lines and come to conclusions that are not so obvious. Knowing how to digest literature can prove to be helpful since connections inside and outside of the text can easily be seen. The Alchemist sends us different messages throughout the end, leaving the reader to decide if the message is to follow our Personal Legends, or to realize it is just a dream. After reading How to Read Literature Like a Professor thoughts are directed to the follow your Personal Legend since Foster tells us to use Biblical clues to unearth the truth, as well as character actions that point to certainty. When you have an extra reading device to help interpret, the text seems to come alive. Through Fosters ideas I have come to the conclusion that the alchemist referred to on the cover of the book is not the alchemist that we meet in the center of the novel, but rather Santiago and becoming an alchemist is his personal
An Analysis on the lives of the Upper, Middle, and Lower classes during the Industrial Revolution
natural philosophy and chemistry. There, he is consumed by the desire to discover the secret of
Our presentation from a chemist comes from Tim Storr, who completed a B.Sc at the University of Victoria before moving on to a Ph.D at UBC, and then became a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford. He is currently an associate professor at SFU, and teaches courses such as 1st year chemistry. His main area of research is medicinal inorganic chemistry, which has him researching and classifying drugs and treatment methods that target metal ions. Dr. Storr’s research includes areas such as: determining the connection between diseases and certain peptides/proteins, identifying metal ions that effectively suppress cancerous growths, and studying radiopharmaceuticals which are radioactive compounds that, once injected into the body, allow an MRI machine
This chemistry book report is focus on a book called “Napoleon's buttons: How 17 molecules changed history” by Penny Le Couteur and Jay Burreson. The publisher of this book is Tarcher Putnam, the book was published in Canada on 2003 with 17 chapters (hey the number match the title of the book!) and a total of 378 pages. The genre of this book is nonfiction. “Napoleon's Buttons” contain a fascinating story of seventeen groups of molecules that have greatly changed the course of history and continuing affect the world we live in today. It also reveal the astonishing chemical connection among some unrelated events, for example: Chemistry caused New Amsterdamers to be renamed New Yorkers and one little accident of detonating cotton apron in a minor housekeeping mishap lead to the development of modern explosives and the founding of the movie industry.
The day before an Organic Chemistry II exam, I felt worried and unprepared as I wrapped up my office hours as an undergraduate teaching assistant (UTA) for CompSci 101. As I sat in the room waiting for my replacement to relieve me, I felt myself being pulled in all directions. At the end of the previous semester, I had ambitiously enrolled myself in two upper-level computer science courses, an infamously difficult statistics course, and second semester organic chemistry. Back then, I had not anticipated that I would have the opportunity to write my own book the following school year or that my manuscripts would be expected in the following
Providing information from a wide variety of sources gives the reader more incentive to read the book, not only benefitting the individual being, but the author as well. Throughout the novel, Carson takes into consideration the audience who will be reading her book. She then goes into vivid detail describing specific scientific terminology, Carson states, “Its structure is beautifully simple, consisting of one carbon atom to which four hydrogen atoms have become attached,”(19). Carson’s words explain the organic compound she is discussing, not only does she describe the compound, Rachel also presents a diagram of the compound for reader’s who are not as knowledgeable in the subject. The diagrams presented branch out into different organic compounds such as: methyl chloride, and anesthetic chloroform.Through this strategy, readers are able to enjoy the material being presented without feeling discouraged from the elevated
It's impressive. That. One. Last. Molecule. And everything as it was will seize and transform. Precision amongst what seems to be chaos, something new is born from that calculated dance. I've often had to covertly wipe the tears from my eyes as I sit, surrounded by my seemingly unmoved peers (academy awards should be handed out if I misjudged even the smallest nuance of tension in their foreheads and strain in their eyes as anything other than confusion), listening to a lecture about how this is more reactive than that, how this repels or attracts that, how bonds are formed, broken, their strength, and how usually heat, hot hot heat activates transformation and gives birth to something different, old things made anew, and how cooling down, by removing heat can suspend a process, and sometimes you can control what the outcome is, other times you have to dispose of it all, placing the waste in the proper receptacle using the appropriate means bc haphazardly submerging it under water in the sink will only cause more problems involving words like purge and evacuate. I often wonder if anyone would understand if I followed through with the compulsion to shout, "Preach!" (lol) as my professor droned on. Sometimes I think abt bringing these things up among my peers (secretly, with hopes that I can meet my future
First-year students pursuing degrees in the natural or physical sciences are required to take a course in General Chemistry along with a laboratory component. With over 1000 students enrolling General Chemistry every quarter, the demand for extra assistance in the laboratory portion of this course is indisputable.
...e also realized that an adenine-thymine pair with two hydrogen bonds was identical in shape to a guanine-cytosine pair with two hydrogen bonds. This opened up the possibility of A-T and G-C pairs, rather than pairs of identical bases. Using Pauling’s ignorance of his mistake to their advantage, Watson and Crick rushed to put the metal model together and write a paper to be published in Nature so they could beat Pauling to the answer. Although they had been exceedingly cautious not to get ahead of themselves and publish a premature manuscript that would later turn out to have a major fault, they now felt they had enough evidence to confidently publish their findings. Indeed, a few days later, they sent the manuscript to the scientific journal with a strong cover letter from Bragg and their research was soon thereafter published, changing the scientific world forever.
Though many people fail to realize it, chemistry is a subject essential to everyday life, due to the fact that it is the branch of science that deals with the identification of the substances of which matter is composed. But what we must understand is that everything in the universe is composed of matter, hence chemistry is necessary in learning more about the world and universe that we live in. There are many careers and fields affiliated with chemistry that people pursue to learn more about the composition of the universe, but for now, let us examine the logistics of three of these careers. These three careers involving chemistry are geochemistry, environmental chemistry, and chemical engineering.
Throughout my school career I have always loved chemistry. In Chemistry there was always a sense that there was more, there was always something new and exciting to be discovered and theories to be proven (or even disproven). Chemistry was the main subject with a real practical aspect to it during school and it is this, along with my genuine fascination with the subject, which fuels my desire to study it further.