The Periodic Kingdom (Science Masters Series) - Softcover

Atkins, P.W.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0465072666 ISBN 13: 9780465072668

Publisher: Basic Books, 1997

Synopsis

Come on a journey into the heart of matter—and enjoy the process!—as a brilliant scientist and entertaining tour guide takes you on a fascinating voyage through the Periodic Kingdom, the world of the elements. The periodic table, your map for this trip, is the most important concept in chemistry. It hangs in classrooms and labs throughout the world, providing support for students, suggesting new avenues of research for professionals, succinctly organizing the whole of chemistry. The one hundred or so elements listed in the table make up everything in the universe, from microscopic organisms to distant planets. Just how does the periodic table help us make sense of the world around us? Using vivid imagery, ingenious analogies, and liberal doses of humor P. W. Atkins answers this question. He shows us that the Periodic Kingdom is a systematic place. Detailing the geography, history and governing institutions of this imaginary landscape, he demonstrates how physical similarities can point to deeper affinities, and how the location of an element can be used to predict its properties. Here's an opportunity to discover a rich kingdom of the imagination kingdom of which our own world is a manifestation.

About this title

Review:

The periodic table of the elements is the grand, unified theory of chemistry. In The Periodic Kingdom, P. W. Atkins imagines the table as a landscape, with fields of metals, pools of mercury and bromine, clouds of gases, and the offshore island of rare earths. He describes the history of this metaphoric kingdom and shows how its laws are those of physical chemistry: they are the expression in the visible world of the invisible dance of subatomic particles. The Periodic Kingdom is an excellent book for students at any level who want to see the connections between chemistry, physics, and "real life."

About the Author:

P. W. Atkins is university lecturer in physical chemistry at the University of Oxford and a fellow and tutor at Lincoln College, Oxford. He is the author of more than twenty books, including the highly popular Molecules and the textbook Physical Chemistry, which is used around the world.

About this edition

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0465072666
• ISBN 13: 9780465072668
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 175