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SUPERHEAVY

MAKING AND BREAKING THE PERIODIC TABLE

A fine pop-science account of elements that “are rewriting the laws of atomic structure.”

Perhaps the first popular-science exploration of the weird world of huge, unstable, laboratory-generated elements.

In his debut, British journalist and broadcaster Chapman first explains that elements from one (hydrogen) to 92 (uranium) exist in nature. Transuranium elements (greater than 92) are produced in nuclear explosions, nuclear reactors, or nuclear accelerators. All are unstable—i.e., radioactive—so they gradually break down, and the heavier they are, the quicker they disappear. This is no problem for plutonium, element 94, which is only mildly radioactive, and Chapman describes the huge industry that generates tons for use in bombs and nuclear power. Just beyond plutonium (Americium, Curium, Berkelium, Californium…), they can be produced in visible quantities and are found in X-ray spectrometers and smoke detectors. Those after Einsteinium (element 99) exist in microscopic amounts and have no commercial use, but they continue to fascinate groups of researchers, including one formerly led by Chapman’s hero, Nobel Prize winner Glenn T. Seaborg (1912-1999), who discovered 10. Based in California, Germany, Sweden, and Russia, these groups compete fiercely to generate heavier elements, often in minuscule quantities, study their properties, and quarrel over who was first. The book’s title refers to elements after 103, which are increasingly hard to produce in vanishingly small quantities but hold out the possibility of an “island of stability,” a massive atom that reverses the trend toward increasingly fleeting existence. “The superheavy elements—elements from 104 and beyond—might last for seconds, but that’s what makes them so cool,” he writes. “When an atom of a superheavy element is created, it is probably the only atom of that element in existence in the universe.” Chapman has done his homework, traveled the world to interview a colorful fraternity of scientists, and delivered an entertaining account of their struggles to create elements that have never existed and that may or may not reveal spectacular new features.

A fine pop-science account of elements that “are rewriting the laws of atomic structure.”

Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-4729-5389-6

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Bloomsbury Sigma

Review Posted Online: May 7, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019

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A SHORT HISTORY OF NEARLY EVERYTHING

Loads of good explaining, with reminders, time and again, of how much remains unknown, neatly putting the death of science...

Bryson (I'm a Stranger Here Myself, 1999, etc.), a man who knows how to track down an explanation and make it confess, asks the hard questions of science—e.g., how did things get to be the way they are?—and, when possible, provides answers.

As he once went about making English intelligible, Bryson now attempts the same with the great moments of science, both the ideas themselves and their genesis, to resounding success. Piqued by his own ignorance on these matters, he’s egged on even more so by the people who’ve figured out—or think they’ve figured out—such things as what is in the center of the Earth. So he goes exploring, in the library and in company with scientists at work today, to get a grip on a range of topics from subatomic particles to cosmology. The aim is to deliver reports on these subjects in terms anyone can understand, and for the most part, it works. The most difficult is the nonintuitive material—time as part of space, say, or proteins inventing themselves spontaneously, without direction—and the quantum leaps unusual minds have made: as J.B.S. Haldane once put it, “The universe is not only queerer than we suppose; it is queerer than we can suppose.” Mostly, though, Bryson renders clear the evolution of continental drift, atomic structure, singularity, the extinction of the dinosaur, and a mighty host of other subjects in self-contained chapters that can be taken at a bite, rather than read wholesale. He delivers the human-interest angle on the scientists, and he keeps the reader laughing and willing to forge ahead, even over their heads: the human body, for instance, harboring enough energy “to explode with the force of thirty very large hydrogen bombs, assuming you knew how to liberate it and really wished to make a point.”

Loads of good explaining, with reminders, time and again, of how much remains unknown, neatly putting the death of science into perspective.

Pub Date: May 6, 2003

ISBN: 0-7679-0817-1

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Broadway

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003

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LETTERS FROM AN ASTROPHYSICIST

A media-savvy scientist cleans out his desk.

Tyson (Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, 2017, etc.) receives a great deal of mail, and this slim volume collects his responses and other scraps of writing.

The prolific science commentator and bestselling author, an astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History, delivers few surprises and much admirable commentary. Readers may suspect that most of these letters date from the author’s earlier years when, a newly minted celebrity, he still thrilled that many of his audience were pouring out their hearts. Consequently, unlike more hardened colleagues, he sought to address their concerns. As years passed, suspecting that many had no interest in tapping his expertise or entering into an intelligent give and take, he undoubtedly made greater use of the waste basket. Tyson eschews pure fan letters, but many of these selections are full of compliments as a prelude to asking advice, pointing out mistakes, proclaiming opposing beliefs, or denouncing him. Readers will also encounter some earnest op-ed pieces and his eyewitness account of 9/11. “I consider myself emotionally strong,” he writes. “What I bore witness to, however, was especially upsetting, with indelible images of horror that will not soon leave my mind.” To crackpots, he gently repeats facts that almost everyone except crackpots accept. Those who have seen ghosts, dead relatives, and Bigfoot learn that eyewitness accounts are often unreliable. Tyson points out that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, so confirmation that a light in the sky represents an alien spacecraft requires more than a photograph. Again and again he defends “science,” and his criteria—observation, repeatable experiments, honest discourse, peer review—are not controversial but will remain easy for zealots to dismiss. Among the instances of “hate mail” and “science deniers,” the author also discusses philosophy, parenting, and schooling.

A media-savvy scientist cleans out his desk.

Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-324-00331-1

Page Count: 272

Publisher: Norton

Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019

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