ApsûVoyage of a Thousand Books
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Who is this book for?
- People who did not learn high-school chemistry well but want to get to know the elements again
- Readers who like the history of science and trivia
- Teachers who want their students to fall in love with the periodic table
- People curious about the science behind war, money, and medicine
Who is the author?
- Sam Kean, American science writer, graduated from the University of Minnesota in physics and also holds a master's degree in library science
- He taught at universities and high schools and later became a professional science writer in Washington, D.C.
- The book was published in 2010
More by this authorThe Violinist's Thumb；The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons；Caesar's Last Breath
Book notes
Where the Title Comes From: The Spoon That Disappears
The title comes from a chemist's favorite prank: the metal gallium melts at around twenty-nine degrees Celsius, below human body temperature. If you make a spoon out of gallium and stir a cup of hot tea with it, the spoon will slowly "disappear" before the guest's eyes. This little story captures the style of the whole book: using one interesting, even somewhat absurd, story after another to introduce the elements of the periodic table and how they affected the people who discovered them.
Starting with a Thermometer
Five Parts, Twenty Stories
Marie Curie and Radium
Scientists Who Broke Through Prejudice
Rays That See Through Objects
Position Is Destiny
Genius and Error
Elements and War
Poisons and Crimes
Gandhi and Iodine
The Nuclear Reactor in the Backyard
Manganese and the Legend of the Megalodon
Elements That Support Modern Life
Reception
The Author and Translator
Bottles that drifted to this book
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Shang
Shang's reading list
Voyager's Guide
The world
The Sea of Books has 24 real islands, one for each subject. Every building on an island is a book.
What you can do now
- Tap an island on the chart to go ashore
- Tap a building to read the notes on that book
- Meet Shang, the Navigator
Coming soon
- Chapter 2: register as a voyager, sail your ship, collect building badges, send bottles
- Chapter 4: private chats with other voyagers
Symbols
Ship's Registry
Before you set sail, let's get your ship registered.