The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table

The Disappearing Spoon is largely anecdotal, its pages filled with interesting and remarkable facts and stories about atoms.

The reader learns, for example, that uranium, when split apart, releases enough energy to power a bomb; that the metal gallium, shaped into a spoon, will melt in cup of warm tea;; that, while people breathe nitrogen in the atmosphere every day, pure nitrogen is lethal; and that some elements only exist for a few moments in a science lab.

The book explores how atoms are wonders in themselves, way too small to be seen, their tiny nuclei surrounded by clouds of electrons far enough away that even the heaviest atoms are mostly empty space. Electrons in one atom will play musical chairs with electrons in some nearby atoms, bonding the atoms together. Electrons can jump back and forth billions of times a second. Atoms are forged inside stars at temperatures of millions of degrees; heavier atoms are born from the explosions of giant stars.

Perhaps the biggest wonder is that the energy levels of atoms, electrons, and their interactions are tuned to the exactly right conditions for organic life. If the elements didn’t behave precisely as they do, people wouldn’t exist at all.