I read the first book in this series - The Alloy of Law - nearly a decade ago on my son's recommendation, which is obviously WAY too long a gap becausI read the first book in this series - The Alloy of Law - nearly a decade ago on my son's recommendation, which is obviously WAY too long a gap because I remember almost nothing from that story or Sanderson's unique "Mistborn" worldbuilding. However, I do remember that book working well as a stand-along story that didn't require a lot of background, whereas this one most definitely does not. So while I can understand this being a 4-5 star read for long-time fans, I was just lacking any sense of the mythology, history, magic, religions, etc., that would have made this work for me.
On top of which, I also remember the first book basically being a fantasy Western, which made for a nice genre mash-up. However, this one was more of a political thriller set in "the big city" of an early 20th Century equivalent, so largely came off as a "The Alienist" (TV series only, as I never read the book) knockoff - right down to the two male and one female detective/psychologist/dilettante leads - with the occasional superpower thrown in, which here was largely limited to soaring over the rooftops, Batman-style.
Anyway, am generously rounding this up to 3-stars, mainly because the fault here was probably as much mine as Sanderson's....more
…and okay, it's only March - but still, this slim, extremely-niche volume provided so much information and answered so BEST SCIENCE BOOK OF THE YEAR!!
…and okay, it's only March - but still, this slim, extremely-niche volume provided so much information and answered so many of my outstanding questions.
In general, I am fascinated by science, but I'm crap at remembering or understanding much of it beyond "ooh, cool!," "ooh, pretty!" or "oh-oh, that'll probably kill us..." Having recently read four books on "the elements" and the periodic chart, I think I now have a rudimentary idea of why electron shells matter, as well as the difference between ions and isotopes, compounds and molecules, and the vertical groups and horizontal periods of the chart. But one question that went consistently unanswered (at least in a way I'd understand it), is "what the hell are the lanthanides and actinides, and why are they different from everything else - like, literally on separate lines of the periodic chart?"
But here it all is - easily explained so that a child could understand it (this is a children's book after all, though God knows what the publishers thought the potential audience would be).
Long story short-ish: all other elements add an additional "valance" electron to their outermost shells with each progressive element - for example, silicon (14 on the chart) has four electrons in its outer shell, while phosphorus (15) has five - and it is the number of these valance electrons which determines how an element bonds with other elements to form molecules, compounds, etc. HOWEVER…while the lanthanides and actinides also add an electron with each progressive element (e.g., plutonium at 94 has two electrons more than uranium at 92), these greater or fewer electrons are found in the inner sixth (lanthanides) or fourth (actinides) shell, rather than the outermost one. That means that all lanthanides (and all actinides) have the same number of electrons in their outer shells, and so they all "behave" very similarly in how they bond with other elements. And so while other neighboring elements like carbon and nitrogen are wildly different from each other, all lanthanides similar properties and therefore have similar practical uses - most commonly as phosphors in TVs and CRT monitors, or in specialized lasers and magnets, special purpose glassware (welding or infrared goggles), electronic components, and other high tech applications.*
So that was my big light bulb moment for this book - but there were other fascinating tidbits throughout, such as: - The lanthanides are what are commonly referred to as "rare earth elements," although in fact they are neither "rare" nor what we normally consider "earth," but instead use the word in the sense of an old chemical term meaning "oxide."
- One of the first practical uses of a lanthanide was in something called "misch metal," a cerium/lanthanum/neodymium compound that sparks when struck and so was used to make flints in cigarette lighters.
- The man-made element Americium is radioactive, but its alpha waves are so weak they can be blocked by a sheet of paper; today it is used in smoke detectors.
- There exist two elements called Terbium and Erbium, which just really makes me smile - they're like the Wingus and Dingus of the periodic chart! **
I'm sure the above could be much better explained, but I won't take the tim; instead, if you're at all interested I highly recommend this book (if you can find it; we just have a really eclectic local library system) - you can get through it in an hour or so, but you'll end up years smarter! ________________________________ * The actinides are a bit more mysterious, however, in that while they are all radioactive, all but four of them are manmade, and most can only be created in a particle accelerator and exist for only a few seconds before decaying into something else. As such, there is really very little known about them and they have no known uses, other than as the root sources of nuclear medicine, power and weapons (and only those elements from actinium to plutonium - although there are to date another 24 elements beyond plutonium, transitory and useless as they are).
** Obscure but classic Zapp Brannigan reference from "Futurama."...more
Fascinating subject matter aside, I got an additional kick out of this books layout, as it kept reminding me of an old high school yearbook (since I have no idea what a new high school yearbook looks like or if they even still have them) - you could see that they were trying to say something nice about everybody, but it was still easy to tell who the popular kids were ("go Sulfur!") and who were, well...not (sorry, Livermorium, who has "no known uses outside of research" - ouch).
Beautiful, fascinating and highly educational - this book represents DK at its very best. Reading just a couple pages a night - it's a grSOLID 5 STARS
Beautiful, fascinating and highly educational - this book represents DK at its very best. Reading just a couple pages a night - it's a great "nightstand book" - I have technically "finished it" but will certainly be revisiting again, (almost typed "will often be…," but let's be realistic - after five element-related books over the past month, I think I'm done for a while).
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Now that I finally more-or-less understand the layout of the Periodic Chart in terms of its horizontal "periods" and vertical "groups," I was particularly impressed with the members of the Carbon Group. With it's super-important elements of carbon (diamonds, oil/coal/natural gas, graphite, etc.), silicon (sand, electronics, ceramics), lead (less popular these days but still a diver's best friend) and tin (cans, foil and many other things before aluminum came along), this is truly chemistry's "Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young"-style supergroup.* (Meanwhile, the Oxygen Group - with oxygen, sulphur, and not much else - would be "Blind Faith" at best…) * For you die-hard CSNY fans, that probably makes the two remaining Carbon Group members - Germanium & Flerovium - the elemental equivalents of Dallas Taylor and Greg Reeves....more
TRANSITION ELEMENTS - welcome to the exciting world of dubnium, hassium, yttrium, ytterbium, darmstadtium, technetium, meitnerium, rutherfordium, seaborgium, dysprosium, praseodymium, protactinium, and oh-so-many-more elements I have NEVER heard of…or as they're more prosaically known, "metals."*
Interesting if confusing stuff - but then I'm in my 60's; maybe a present day 10-year-old would process this better. At least I now understand what "valence" electrons are, and the difference between molecules, compounds and alloys (see Mendeleyev review). Also, I continue to love the fact that every element heavier than iron has to be forged in an exploding supernova; plus the equally mind-blowing fact that if an atom of hydrogen were the size of the Super Dome, its nucleus would be the size of a pea - cool!
* Obviously excluding the 12 alkali and alkaline Earth metals. I mean, obviously....more
Library currently has a big display of books on "The Elements," which quickly gets into way-too-confusing atomic structure and quantum mechanics…maybeLibrary currently has a big display of books on "The Elements," which quickly gets into way-too-confusing atomic structure and quantum mechanics…maybe as a tie-in with the release of the new "Ant Man & The Wasp: Quantumania" movie?
In any case, this one caught my attention, as I have a long-held and genuinely weird affection for the Periodic Table. Back in the mid-60's, when TV shows like "Man from U.N.C.L.E.," "I Spy," "Mission Impossible" and "Secret Agent" were all the rage, my nerdier elementary school friends and I developed a secret code based on the chart, so we could pass notes back and forth on how to save the world and which of our female classmates might like us. (Answer: Absolutely none. I mean, we were ten-year-old boys who were constantly whipping plastic copies of the Periodic Chart out of our wallets and then scribbling away…in fact, it was probably damning enough that we were ten-year-old boys who carried wallets.)
Anyway…to the present. Fascinating overview of Russian chemist Mendeleyev and his creation (discovery? invention? development?) of the Periodic Chart - "periodic," because he was the first to realize that disparate elements repeated similar properties periodically. This was truly amazing for its time, in that there were only some 60+ elements identified by the mid-1800s; but Mendeleyev was able to not only predict where new, undiscovered elements would fit into the chart,* but what some of their properties would be, (and bear in mind that this was long before any understanding of atomic structure - protons, neutrons and electrons were still decades away from discovery, much less the electron "shells" which determine the stability of an element and where it falls on the chart [I think]).
Interesting as this all is, it raises the same question I have with so many other "young reader" books on science, foreign countries, etc…WHO IS THE TARGET AUDIENCE HERE? I mean, per above - yeah, I was a nerdy kid, but even if I caught the remote "Ant Man" connection (and yes, he was already around back then), I would have NEVER sat down and read something like this. Even having done so now as a reasonably intelligent adult who actually LIKES science, I still have trouble explaining the difference between rules, laws, principles and theories; I think I'm now pretty good now with compounds and molecules (all compounds are molecules, but not all molecules are compounds); but afraid I still have no idea how "valences" work.
So maybe the target audience is just me. Fair enough; at least it keeps me reading SOME science and challenging my brain at (maybe) a fifth-grade level. ____________________________________
* Fun fact: Mendeleyev called his missing elements "eka" elements, from the Sanskrit for "one," as in "one step removed." So his "eka-aluminum" - the element that should come right before aluminum - when it was finally discovered would be renamed gallium; "eka-boron" became scandium; etc.
Another fun fact: Quintessential Irish actor Patrick McGoohan, of "Secret Agent" fame? Born in New York. Check it out....more
My son's read the whole Mistborn series, and recommended this as a nice stand-alone introduction if I really didn't want to read the full 1000+ pages My son's read the whole Mistborn series, and recommended this as a nice stand-alone introduction if I really didn't want to read the full 1000+ pages of the original trilogy. Plot was fairly simple (which, as I've commented elsewhere, is what all good Westerns should be), but the unique Allomancy and Feruchemy powers are pretty cool, and can be readily understood without reading the other books.
I'd otherwise never heard of Sanderson, but apparently he's a big deal in the fantasy genre, and I can see why. Nice, fun escapist read. ...more
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