The Periodic Kingdom : A Journey into the Land of the Chemical Elements - Softcover

Peter Atkins

3.51

516 ratings by Goodreads

9781857994490: The Periodic Kingdom : A Journey into the Land of the Chemical Elements

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1857994493 ISBN 13: 9781857994490

Publisher: Phoenix / Orion, 1996

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The Periodic Kingdom is a journey of imagination in which Peter Atkins treats the periodic table of elements - the 109 chemical elements in the world, from which everything is made - as a country, a periodic kingdom, each region of which corresponds to an element. Arranged much like a travel guide, the book introduces the reader to the general features of the table, the history of the elements, and the underlying arrangement of the table in terms of the structure and properties of atoms. Atkins sees elements as finely balanced living personalities, with quirks of character and certain, not always outward, dispositions, and the kingdom is thus a land of intellectual satisfaction and infinite delight.

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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:

Peter Atkins gained his PhD at Leicester University and his MA at Oxford, where he is Lecturer in Physical Chemistry and Fellow of Lincoln College. Visiting professorships have taken him all over the world ' to Israel, Japan, China, France and New Zealand. His research interests include quantum theory, particularly the theory of molecular properties.

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