- Publisher: Thames & Hudson
- Year: 2021
- Format: Hardback
- Pages: 224pp
- Illustrated: Yes
- Dimensions: 250x197mm
- Condition: New
- Weight: 1kg
- ISBN: 9780500024539
- Product code: 535283
The Elements
A Visual History of Their Discovery
Philip Ball New Hardback Illustrated
Postscript summary
Ranging from the ancient Greeks’ identification of metals such as gold, silver and lead to the splitting of the atom this chronological account of the 118 elements of the Periodic Table covers millennia of discovery. Illustrated with historic images, it follows the discovery of metals such as platinum in the 18th century and the development of spectrometry in the 19th. Sidebars show the atomic number, symbol and weight of each element.
Product information
Full publisher description
This book offers a largely chronological illustrated guide to how the chemical elements were discovered over the past three millennia. It provides a view not just of how we came to understand what everything is made of but also of how chemistry developed from a trial-and-error craft of making and transforming substances into a rational modern science that provides us with new materials, drugs, and much else.
While other books have described the properties of the chemical elements and often delved into their histories, none has done so in this highly visual manner. The closest comparison is Theodore Gray's illustrated book The Elements - but this does not take a historical approach as this does here. The pictorial material for this subject is very rich, including some gorgeous alchemical documents as well as portraits, colour charts, woodcuts of mining, artefacts such as John Dalton's wooden balls, advertisements (for example, for radium 'cures') and postage stamps.
The book contains separate short sections for each element or groups of related elements, which are gathered into several sections to order the sequence into several chronological eras of element discovery. Included are short 'interludes' (or 'feature spreads') presenting important intellectual milestones in how we think about elements.
With 192 illustrations
While other books have described the properties of the chemical elements and often delved into their histories, none has done so in this highly visual manner. The closest comparison is Theodore Gray's illustrated book The Elements - but this does not take a historical approach as this does here. The pictorial material for this subject is very rich, including some gorgeous alchemical documents as well as portraits, colour charts, woodcuts of mining, artefacts such as John Dalton's wooden balls, advertisements (for example, for radium 'cures') and postage stamps.
The book contains separate short sections for each element or groups of related elements, which are gathered into several sections to order the sequence into several chronological eras of element discovery. Included are short 'interludes' (or 'feature spreads') presenting important intellectual milestones in how we think about elements.
With 192 illustrations
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535283
The Elements
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Ranging from the ancient Greeks’ identification of metals such as gold, silver and lead to the splitting of the atom this chronological account of the 118 elements of the Periodic Table covers millennia of discovery. Illustrated with historic images, it follows the discovery of metals such as platinum in the 18th century and the development of spectrometry in the 19th. Sidebars show the atomic number, symbol and weight of each element.
Hardback
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rrp_info:£25.00
productId:151285
bic_code:PDZ
PDZ
£25.00
Philip Ball
General
250x197mm
Thames & Hudson
No
Hardback
