By Theodore Gray
"The periodic table," says author Theodore Gray, "is the universal catalog of everything you can drop on your foot." Everything in the world that is tangible is made up of elements, and elements have two faces - their pure states, and the range of chemical compounds they form when they combine with other elements. The Elements provides us with the rare opportunity to see both, up close and personal. Based on seven years of research and photography, the pictures in this book make up the most complete, and visually arresting, portrait of every element in the universe.
Organized in order of appearance in the periodic table, the book showcases each element (whenever possible) with a big, beautiful photograph of the pure element. For example, oxygen (element 8) nis a colorless gas, but at -183¦C, it turns into a pale blue liquid. Also included are photographs that show examples of the way that element lives in the world - the compounds and applications in which we experience the element in daily life.
The text that accompanies each spread tells the story of the element. It is here where we learn, for example, that flourine (element 9) is one of the most reactive elements. If you blow a stream of flourine gas at almost anything it will burst into flames, but because it's so reactive, its resulting compounds are very stable.
Along with the story of each element is essential scientific data including atomic weight, atomic radius, a crystal structure diagram, and graphs representing electron tilling order, the atomic emission spectrum, and the temperatures at which the element is a solid, liquid, or gas. An explanation of these properties, along with a complete tour of the structure of the periodic table, is included in the introduction.
The ultimate combination of hard science and photographic artistry, The Elements is the perfect book for every sentient creature in the universe.
