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Periodic Table, Chemistry, Atoms, and Element Book Briefs
The Periodic Table:
Its Story and Its Significance
by Eric R. Scerri
Eric Scerri's latest book review in the Journal of Chemical education; "The Periodic Table:Its Story and its Significance should be of great interest and value to chemists and particularly to those chemists who teach about what makes up us, our world, and our science."
Features
1. The first comprehensive book on the evolution and significance of the periodic table, the central icon of chemistry, since the publication of Van Spronsen's classic book of 1969 which has been out of print for many years.
2. Considers the concepts and ideas underlying the periodic table and its relation to quantum physics, something that was not provided in Van Spronsen.
Dmitri Mendeleev and the Periodic Table:
(Uncharted, Unexplored, and Unexplained)
by Susan Zannos
Born in an isolated Siberian village in 1834, Dmitri Ivanovitch Mendeleev overcame great odds to become the most brilliant and acclaimed scientist in the field of chemistry in the 19th century. He was awarded the gold medal for best student of the year in 1855. As a young chemistry teacher, he was sent to study in Europe in order the bring the latest developments in the science back to Russia. He succeeded so well that his chemistry textbooks became standard texts all over the world, and his Periodic Table of the elements forms the foundation for all the advances in chemistry from his time until the present.
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Philosophy of Chemistry:
SynThesis of a New Discipline (Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science)
by Davis Baird, Eric Scerri, and Lee McIntyre, editors
This comprehensive volume marks a new standard in scholarship in the still emerging field of the philosophy of chemistry.
With selections drawn from a wide range of scholarly disciplines, philosophers, chemists, and historians of science here converge to ask some of the most fundamental questions about the relationship between philosophy and chemistry.
How do we see the world differently from scientists in adjacent fields, or from non–scientists in their everyday lives? To the extent that considering such questions can add excitement and satisfaction to the experience of doing chemistry, the essays in this volume will be a welcome resource.
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Power of the Periodic Table:
the Secret of Change in the Universe, the Chemical Reaction
by Roy Timmreck
Power of the Periodic Table shows the reader how to visualize, understand and predict which chemical reactions may or may not occur, under what conditions of temperature and pressure, and how fast – to see clearly the roles of electronic structure, molecular structure, bonding and thermodynamics. It follows a pathway of those mental challenges which must be met, structures of thought which must be formed to reach that level of understanding, a pathway through the center of chemistry touching on the origins and effects of that knowledge.
So doing, it illuminates the ways of the scientist, thinking, learning and feeling about this wondrous cosmic reality. Entirely readable and substantive, it is written for those who say, "I want to know that." Its best audience so far has been doctors, engineers, teachers, and bright students.
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Of Minds and Molecules:
New Philosophical Perspectives on Chemistry
edited by Nalini Bhushan & Stuart Rosenfeld
Why Not a Philosophy of Chemistry?
Philosophy of physics and philosophy of biology are well–established subdisciplines of the philosophy of science, so why not philosophy of chemistry? I remember posing this question as an undergraduate chemistry major to my first philosophy instructor, a well–known philosopher of science.
He pondered the question awhile and answered that he didn't really know, that perhaps there are no interesting philosophical questions in chemistry. This is a view challenged in this new collection of 15 essays about philosophy of chemistry.
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A Well–Ordered Thing:
Dmitri Mendeleev and the Shadow of the Periodic Table
by Michael D. Gordin
When young Dmitrii Mendeleev drafted the Periodic Table of elements as a guide for his chemistry students, he was already dreaming of building a scientific empire in his home of Russia––with himself at its center.
His Periodic Table predicted the existence of three unknown elements and helped foster the entire science of chemistry, so it's sad to learn the name of Dmitrii Mendeleev himself has been relatively lost in relation to his creation.
Michael D. Gordon's book resolves this neglect, providing an excellent review of both the Table's importance and Mendeleev's stormy relationship with his Russian background. An exciting, enlightening survey evolves.
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A Brief Review (and offering) of Books About the Periodic Table