The Periodic Table
Its Story and Its Significance
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Narrated by:
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James Adams
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By:
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Eric Scerri
About this listen
The periodic table is one of the most potent icons in science. It lies at the core of chemistry and embodies the most fundamental principles of the field. The one definitive text on the development of the periodic table by van Spronsen (1969), has been out of print for a considerable time. The present book provides a successor to van Spronsen, but goes further in giving an evaluation of the extent to which modern physics has, or has not, explained the periodic system.
The Periodic Table is written in a lively style to appeal to experts and interested lay-persons alike. It begins with an overview of the importance of the periodic table and of the elements and it examines the manner in which the term "element" has been interpreted by chemists and philosophers. The book then turns to a systematic account of the early developments that led to the classification of the elements, including the work of Lavoisier, Boyle, and Dalton and Cannizzaro. The precursors to the periodic system, like Dobereiner and Gmelin, are discussed. In chapter 3 the discovery of the periodic system by six independent scientists is examined in detail.
Two chapters are devoted to the discoveries of Mendeleev, the leading discoverer, including his predictions of new elements and his accommodation of already existing elements. Chapters 6 and 7 consider the impact of physics, including the discoveries of radioactivity and isotopy and successive theories of the electron, including Bohr's quantum theoretical approach. Chapter 8 discusses the response to the new physical theories by chemists, such as Lewis and Bury, who were able to draw on detailed chemical knowledge to correct some of the early electronic configurations published by Bohr and others. Chapter 9 provides a critical analysis of the extent to which modern quantum mechanics is, or is not, able to explain the periodic system from first principles.
Finally, chapter 10 considers the way that the elements evolved following the Big Bang and in the interior of stars. The book closes with an examination of further chemical aspects, including lesser known trends within the periodic system, such as the knight's move relationship and secondary periodicity, as well at attempts to explain such trends.
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The second half of the 20th century witnessed a scientific gold rush as physicists raced to chart the inner workings of the atom. The stakes were high, the questions were big, and there were Nobel Prizes and everlasting glory to be won. Many mysteries of the atom came unraveled, but one remained intractable-what Frank Close calls the "Infinity Puzzle."
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Succinct exposition
- By Gary on 06-26-12
By: Frank Close
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The Golden Ratio
- The Story of Phi, the World's Most Astonishing Number
- By: Mario Livio
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 10 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Throughout history, thinkers from mathematicians to theologians have pondered the mysterious relationship between numbers and the nature of reality. In this fascinating book, Mario Livio tells the tale of a number at the heart of that mystery: phi, or 1.6180339887.... This curious mathematical relationship, widely known as "The Golden Ratio", was discovered by Euclid more than 2,000 years ago. Since then it has shown a propensity to appear in the most astonishing variety of places.
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Tedious Listen
- By Amanda Halsdorff on 10-25-14
By: Mario Livio
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Warped Passages
- Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions
- By: Lisa Randall
- Narrated by: Donna Postel
- Length: 17 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Warped Passages is an altogether exhilarating journey that tracks the arc of discovery from early 20th-century physics to the razor's edge of modern scientific theory. One of the world's leading theoretical physicists, Lisa Randall provides astonishing scientific possibilities that, until recently, were restricted to the realm of science fiction. Unraveling the twisted threads of the most current debates on relativity, quantum mechanics, and gravity, she explores some of the most fundamental questions posed by Nature.
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Physics textbook without the math
- By Victor on 05-13-18
By: Lisa Randall
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The Story of Western Science
- From the Writings of Aristotle to the Big Bang Theory
- By: Susan Wise Bauer
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Far too often, public discussion of science is carried out by journalists, voters, and politicians who have received their science secondhand. The Story of Western Science shows us the joy and importance of reading groundbreaking science writing for ourselves and guides us back to the masterpieces that have changed the way we think about our world, our cosmos, and ourselves.
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Good text, tedious book structure
- By Diane K. on 10-07-15
By: Susan Wise Bauer
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Quantum Enigma
- Physics Encounters Consciousness
- By: Bruce Rosenblum, Fred Kuttner
- Narrated by: Christopher Grove
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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In trying to understand the atom, physicists built quantum mechanics, the most successful theory in science and the basis of one-third of our economy. They found, to their embarrassment, that with their theory, physics encounters consciousness. Authors Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner explain all this in nontechnical terms with help from some fanciful stories and anecdotes about the theory's developers. They present the quantum mystery honestly, emphasizing what is and what is not speculation.
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Wow. Very Informative and mind boggling.
- By Kevin Harper, Realtor on 08-11-17
By: Bruce Rosenblum, and others
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A Brief History of Infinity: The Quest to Think the Unthinkable
- Brief Histories
- By: Brian Clegg
- Narrated by: Gordon Griffin
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the street to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.' Douglas Adams, Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.We human beings have trouble with infinity - yet infinity is a surprisingly human subject. Philosophers and mathematicians have gone mad contemplating its nature and complexity - yet it is a concept routinely used by schoolchildren. Exploring the infinite is a
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Really not great in Audio, not great otherwise
- By Michael on 03-29-13
By: Brian Clegg
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What Is Life?
- How Chemistry Becomes Biology
- By: Addy Pross
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 6 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Seventy years ago, Erwin Schrdinger posed a simple, yet profound, question: What is life?. How could the very existence of such extraordinary chemical systems be understood? This problem has puzzled biologists and physical scientists both before, and ever since. Living things are hugely complex and have unique properties, such as self-maintenance and apparently purposeful behaviour which we do not see in inert matter. So how does chemistry give rise to biology?
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Profound & Life Changing...
- By Daegan Smith on 04-06-15
By: Addy Pross
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Uncertainty
- Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, and the Struggle for the Soul of Science
- By: David Lindley
- Narrated by: Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 7 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Werner Heisenberg's "uncertainty principle" challenged centuries of scientific understanding, placed him in direct opposition to Albert Einstein, and put Niels Bohr in the middle of one of the most heated debates in scientific history. Heisenberg's theorem stated that there were physical limits to what we could know about sub-atomic particles; this "uncertainty" would have shocking implications.
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fascinating insight into the real drama of physics
- By Ryan on 09-07-10
By: David Lindley
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Significant Figures
- The Lives and Work of Great Mathematicians
- By: Ian Stewart
- Narrated by: Roger Clark
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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In Significant Figures, acclaimed mathematician Ian Stewart introduces the visionaries of mathematics throughout history. Delving into the lives of twenty-five great mathematicians, Stewart examines the roles they played in creating, inventing, and discovering the mathematics we use today. Through these short biographies, we get acquainted with the history of mathematics.
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Beware
- By Anton Kurtz on 12-08-18
By: Ian Stewart
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Relativity
- The Special and the General Theory
- By: Albert Einstein
- Narrated by: Julian Lopez-Morillas
- Length: 2 hrs and 14 mins
- Abridged
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Albert Einstein described Relativity as a "popular explosion" of his famous theory. Written in 1916, it introduced the lay audience to the remarkable perspective which had overturned theoretical physics. Einstein's genius was to express this perspective in understandable terms.
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Can't stand listening to the reader.
- By Xcoder on 04-20-11
By: Albert Einstein
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The Island of Knowledge
- The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning
- By: Marcelo Gleiser
- Narrated by: William Neenan
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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How much can we know about the world? In this audiobook physicist Marcelo Gleiser traces our search for answers to the most fundamental questions of existence, the origin of the universe, the nature of reality, and the limits of knowledge. In so doing he reaches a provocative conclusion: Science, like religion, is fundamentally limited as a tool for understanding the world. As science and its philosophical interpretations advance, we face the unsettling recognition of how much we don't know.
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Island of knowledge
- By Joshua Kring on 07-26-15
By: Marcelo Gleiser
What listeners say about The Periodic Table
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Jared
- 12-14-11
Good. But too boring/dry for me.
I am interested in this subject, but (in my opinion) this is a very boring book. I was hoping for a little more stories to liven things up. In my opinion this book does not belong in audio format. Performance was as good as it could be.
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7 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 03-15-14
Interesting, but narrowly targeted work.
Any additional comments?
The Periodic Table is less about the chemistry of elements than about the history of the development of "the periodic system" and its implications for the philosophy of science. Level of difficulty seems appropriate to upper level undergraduate chemistry majors. (Scerri distinguishes between the periodic system as a theoretic structure and periodic tables as conceptual representations of that system. I suspected he would have preferred a less marketable title more focused on the system than the table.)
I had just finished The Disappearing Spoon by Kean. (I found The Periodic Table while looking for something more rigorous and less conversational.) This was fortunate. I don't believe that I would have been able to follow much of Scerri's history without the foundation given by Kean's accounts of the discovery of the elements.Overall, I found the content interesting, though I lost much by not having a print copy at hand. In addition to not being able to see relevant illustrations, I had difficulty in following the notation of both elements and electron configuration. The discussion of the reduction of the chemistry of atomic structure to quantum physics was new to me and especially interesting.
Overall, I found the author's writing to be stuffy - a word I haven't used in decades. His presentation at times felt like a listing of facts in a long criminal indictment. The choice of an equally dry British English reader did nothing to relief the congestion.The performance was just short of intolerable. Pronunciation was distracting at best. Because the reader spoke British English it was often difficult to tell whether his pronunciation was wrong or was simply British. At times it was obvious. (Consider the question -- How do you tell a chemist from a plumber? Ask him to pronounce "unionized".) Names were also obviously a problem. "Bethe" was pronounced bay-thuh, rather than bay-tuh. (I apologize for the crudity of my phonetic representation.) The pronunciation of the "Heinrich" of Heinrich Herz changed in mid-chapter from Hinrich to Heinrich. Even when given a 'correct' German pronunciation, it was Low German, not High German. I don't know which dialect Herz spoke, but I suspect that the reader didn't either.
A second performance problem, at least for me, was his choice to read literally what was on the page. A knowledgeable editorial decision to make changes which would render the visually comprehensible in a way that was more accessible to the ear would have markedly improved much of the reading. The simplest example is in listing of sequences of elements: what was listed as Si-Ge-Sn would be literally read as S I, G E, S N, but would have been easier to follow if read as silicon, germanium and tin. The numeric strings of quantum electron configurations were completely lost to me. Superscripts were alway read as "to the power of", though I don't believe they ever represented exponents.
If the subject interests you, I would recommend the book, but only in print form.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Geir Solgaard
- 07-07-16
Great book
This book presents the history of the periodic table in an interesting and easy way. Basic understanding of chemistry is needed.
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- Juha
- 06-09-14
Audible table - an oxymoron
Where does The Periodic Table rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
I have been pleased with almost all audible books. So if I say this book is below an average audible book the reader might think this was a poor book. That is not the case this was far better book than many I have read but below average book out of those I have listened.
Who was your favorite character and why?
Dmitri Mendelejev. It was interesting to learn he was not the first or best, but still for some strange reason the best known.
What aspect of James Adams’s performance would you have changed?
Nothing
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
No not really. The plot is not as captivating as in some "normal" story books
Any additional comments?
As a book this is not a big entertainment. But if one has similar desire as I have wanting to understand chemistry, science history and the universe; this is much better way than ordinary schoolbook.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Ram Ramabhadran
- 08-02-20
Superb, illuminating and profound
This book was a joy to listen to!
Trained early as a physicist reading chemistry texts about the periodic table, I believed that quantum mechanics was instrumental in clarifying the entirety of the periodic table. Also, as a biologist currently, I was not much concerned with elements only up to the first 3-4 rows of the periodic table. This book has dispelled my misconceptions on the role of quantum mechanics as a sole tool and has made me recognize the contribution of chemists' intimate knowledge of the elements' chemical properties to the development of the Table in its current form. This book also enlightened me of the further nuances, discrepancies, and relationships in the Table that I was not aware of; it appears to be a fertile ground for further investigation for just for pure joy of discovery.
As a listener (and not a reader), I had to listen to lot of the discussion about specific details that were impossible to internalize. Nonetheless, just listening to the main themes while disregarding details was sufficient to make me appreciate the contributions of several scientists other than Mendeleev and Bohr. I am truly pleased that I listened to this book. The author has a profound knowledge of the table and I highly recommend this book anyone who is keen on understanding of the great human scientific achievement that is the Periodic Table.
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- Troy
- 03-04-12
I am fascinated by the periodic table.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Although it was a little dense at times and I wish I had the printed version to see the equations, it is a masterful story. God reveals his true intricate nature through science and no where is that beauty more radiant than in the periodic table, except perhaps in evolution. It is a must for any chemistry geek like myself.
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2 people found this helpful
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- JAO22314
- 12-29-11
MeanderingTable
What would have made The Periodic Table better?
Would have been better if there had been a real story line to this book. The dissappearing Spoon was much better, more engaging. This book presumes you already know quite a bit about the periodic table. Jumps all over the place.
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8 people found this helpful