In this bustling atmosphere “The Disappearing Spoon” is a timely conversation piece, what with chapter headings like “Take Two Elements, Call Me in the Morning” (about elements used for medical purposes) and “Poisoner’s Corridor: ‘Ouch-Ouch.’ ” But elements are the new dinosaurs: they’re available via placemats, posters, T-shirts, a fine coffee-table book (“The Elements”), a 3-D app for mobile devices and, of course, that heavenly old Tom Lehrer song (also called “The Elements”) speedily set to its Gilbert and Sullivan melody. Such factoids might seem more specious if the periodic table were not such a familiar and popular scientific artifact. plan to poison Fidel Castro by putting thallium in his socks. Here is a book that shows off the longest chemistry-related anagram ever written, the 1,185-letter technical term for “tobacco mosaic virus” gives an explanation of why the element europium makes the euro note “the most sophisticated piece of currency ever devised” and tells of a purported C.I.A. He uses these to turn “The Disappearing Spoon” into a nonstop parade of lively science stories. Kean does have is a big supply of odd facts and anecdotes related to the periodic table.
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