The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements, is a 2010 book by science reporter Sam Kean. The book was first published in hardback on July 12, 2010, through Little, Brown and Company and was released in paperback on June 6, 2011, through Little, Brown and Company's imprint Back Bay Books.
The book focuses on the history of the periodic table by way of short stories showing how a number of chemical elements affected their discoverers, for either good or bad. People discussed in the book include the physicist and chemist Marie Curie, whose discovery of radium almost ruined her career; the writer Mark Twain, whose short story "Sold to Satan" featured a devil who was made of radium and wore a suit made of polonium; and the theoretical physicist Maria Goeppert-Mayer, who earned a Nobel Prize in Physics for her groundbreaking work, yet continually faced opposition owing to her sex. The book's title refers to gallium, whose melting point would cause a spoon of that metal to "disappear" if placed in a cup of hot tea, by melting into a puddle at the bottom of the cup.
Contents Chapter 1. Geography of elements Sam Kean begins this book by explaining the basics of the periodic table and how it works. He explains the set-up of the table and why it is organized the way it is. He emphasizes the importance of its organization and justifies why it must be this way. He discusses how the periodic table would not function if it were not for the layout. He states that an element's position describes its function and strength. He describes the table of elements as a castle and the elements as bricks to build this castle. He then discusses how the periodic table contains, and is organized into, metals, gases, noble gases, halogens, etc.
Kean also discusses how ions work overall. He describes how ions are made when atoms connect with electrons by either giving electrons or taking electrons to another molecule to obtain a net electrical charge. He states the importance the net electrical charge has on the elements and the periodic table placement. He covers the electron shells and how certain elements hide electrons and do not share and, while others do share. Kean describes electron behavior as being the guiding point to what forms the period table. Toward the end of this chapter, he speaks of Maria Goeppert-Mayer and her contributions to science.
Chapter 2. The fathers of the periodic table The author focuses on the relationships between carbon, silicon, and germanium. He explains how carbon is the backbone of amino acids and the building blocks to everything. He discusses that because of carbon, amino acids all stick together. Then, he describes the carbon element and how it wants to fill its outer energy level with eight electrons so it attaches to four atoms since carbon already has four electrons.
Next, Kean describes silicon. In general, he states that they are cousins because silicon mimics carbon in the sense that it also seeks to attach to four more atoms to fill its energy levels. The big issue that silicon encounters is that silicon does not have the life-sustaining abilities like carbon to attach to oxygen. Silicon dioxide can be fatal and carbon dioxide is not. Moving forward in this chapter Kean starts to describe Germanium and its similarities to silicon. Both of these elements are semiconductors and because of this they can be used for technological purposes. Sam describes Germanium as "The black sheep of the family" because silicon is used for the technology instead of germanium. Unfortunately for Germanium, silicon provided a much better use for electronics and was used when men were sent to the moon and when computers and cell phones were made instead of germanium.
Chapter 3. All in the family: The Genealogy of elements The author examines Robert Bunsen and his history. Bunsen had passion for arsenic but an explosion left him half-blind for the rest of his life and because of this he created the Bunsen burner. He discusses many people who contributed to the periodic table, including Dmitri Mendeleev, the man accredited for creating the first periodic table. Mendeleev predicted other elements that were yet discovered. He put the 62 known elements into columns and rows but he was not the only scientist to attempt this. Julius Lothar Meyer also worked on his own periodic table. Mendeleev had left blanks in his table where the lanthanides are because he did not know what elements were to go there. The missing elements were later found in the mine called Ytterby in Sweden. Researchers such as Johan Gadolin isolated clusters of lanthanides along with many scientists who made the trip to Ytterby to find the missing elements. Overall seven lanthanides elements were found and six of them were predicted by Mendeleev's table of elements.
Chapter 4. Where atoms come from: "We are all star stuff" The author talks about theories of the origins of elements and discusses the big bang theory and how all elements were created. He then discusses the confusion about big bang caused by research of the stars and how certain elements are only found in stars. Kean states that scientists are confused due to young stars having only helium and hydrogen while older stars had dozens of elements. He then explains the famous 1957 paper called B2FH that explains stars and their elements. He summarises this document and then explains Earth's elements, the supernovae, the Solar System, the formation of gas giants and the formation of rocky planets.
Chapter 5. Elements in times of war Kean discusses elements and their involvement in chemical warfare in World Wars I and II. Kean gives a brief summary of the wars and their beginnings, linking them to the Trojan wars. He describes how the Spartans threw bundles of wood, pitch, and stinky sulfur into Athens to force the Athenians out but failed. Even though all of the scientifically advanced countries except the US signed the Hague Convention in 1899 to ban chemical weapons in war, the deal was broken. Countries secretly investigated the uses of bromine and chlorine.
Ultimately, Kean examines people such as Fritz Haber, who developed ammonia to help the agricultural field to prevent people from starving to death, but instead ammonia was used to help Germany build nitrogen explosives. The author describes the effects that this had on Fritz's life and family. Towards the end of this chapter Kean explains the things countries did to obtain the elements for weaponry and killing.
Chapter 6. Completing the table..with a bang Kean starts by discussing Henry Moseley, who was famous for finding a mathematical relationship between the wavelengths of x-rays, the number of protons an element has, and the elements atomic number. He also built an electron gun that helped sort radioactive elements which by doing so also was able to disprove newly found elements. Moseley died on the field during World War I and his death caused scientists to search for the missing elements Moseley had discussed. The periodic table expanded as more elements were discovered. Following the timeline, Kean also discussed how the neutron was also discovered and how people became interested in radioactivity and began doing research. Upcoming radioactivity research led to the Manhattan Project to develop along with the hopes of building an atomic bomb. The Manhattan Project combined with the Monte Carlo method was successful and atomic bombs were able to be created. The Monte Carlos then strove for the development of computers and more nuclear weapons. This led to the creation of gamma radiation bombs. Kean closes the chapter by explaining how Manhattan Project veterans came up with bombs using cobalt capable of annihilating humanity and also explains the deal between the US and Soviet governments to lose any nuclear war.
Chapter 7. Competitive elements: Extending the table, expanding the cold war Sam Kean mostly emphasizes the discoveries of the last elements in the periodic table. Glenn Seaborg and Albert Ghiorso with join efforts worked at UC Berkeley and found at least one-sixth of the elements on the table, the most elements than anyone else in history. Discovering elements involved many experiments where one little mistake could ruin the whole experiment and waste thousands of dollars. Kean discussed the many arguments and fights raised for the naming rights of these final elements. The Russians found element 104 in 1964 before the Berkeley team did and later discovered element 105 but fights arose when both teams found element 106 just months apart and the big feuds for naming rights began. The disagreements ran into the 1990s, but the fights and feuds were so extreme that IUPAC (International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry) had to give the final names. They studied the data of both teams and came up with a list of names. Both teams had lists of names they wanted. Seaborg was alive when an element was named after him and he was the first to be alive when such an occurrence happened.
Chapter 8. From Physics to Biology The author discusses the importance awareness of the details of the periodic table. Doing so could have avoided the two biggest mistakes in science history made by Linus Pauling and Emilio Segre. The author begins to discuss element 43, which was allegedly found many times by various scientists, but was actually first found by Emilio Segre. Then he talks about the basic mistakes Linus Pauling made when trying to discover the true form of the DNA strand. Instead, James Watson, Francis Crick, and Rosalind Franklin's research led to the discovery of the true shape and form of the DNA strand.
Chapter 9. Poisoner's corridor: "Ouch-Ouch" Elements such as thallium, lead, polonium, cadmium and bismuth- otherwise known as the poisonous elements- are discussed. Cadmium's huge effects on Japan were discussed. Cadmium was constantly dumped into waters, usually when mining for zinc. The constant dumping eventually led to a poisoning of the rice plants due to the poisoned water. This, consequently, led to the development of a disease called "itai-itai" or ouch-ouch, where people suffered tremendous pain, liver failure, and extremely damaged weakened bones. It took a very long time for people to discover the relation between this horrible disease and the poisonous water. Sam discussed thallium and ways it was used for killing people. The author then discusses that bismuth has a half-life of 20 quintillion years, meaning that it will live on more than other elements.
Kean mentions people who experimented with the poisonous elements mentioned, such as David Hahn who tried to create Uranium-233 in his backyard with the lithium from batteries and thorium and was soon after arrested for attempting. Kean discusses Graham Young, who experimented by putting this element in people's food and drinks. He was sent to a mental institution, but when he left, he continued poisoning people. He only killed three of the many people he poisoned.
Chapter 10. Take two elements, call me in the morning