Essential Elements

What is everything around us made of, and how did it get there What arcane secrets hide in the modern alchemists laboratory Is there a hidden order in matter itself, known only to a select few You hold in your hands the smallest guide to the building blocks of the universe ever assembled on Earth. Let Matt Tweed take you on a lightening tour of things small, things invisible, and some things so minute and strange that no scientist is sure if they actually exist.

• 1 Ingredients makes one human oxygen 61, carbon 23, hydrogen 10, nitrogen 2.6, calcium 1.4, phosp
• 3 First published in the U.S. by Walker BooksBloomsbury 2003 AD This paperback edition Wooden Books
• 4 Contents Introduction 1 Early Alchemy 2 The Age of Science 4 Inside the Atom 6 Periodic tables
• 1 IntroductIon Pretty much all that we see or touch in our seemingly solid world is made from squint
• 2 3 Early alchEmy a wee bit of magick The roots of chemistry stretch far back into the dim and dista
• 4 5 thE agE of ScIEncE alchemy transmutes into chemistry By the eighteenth century scientists were f
• 6 7 InSIdE thE atom proton, neutron and electron A simple visualisation of an atom is as a solar sys
• 8 9 PErIodIc tablES elemental ordering The Atomic Shells above, with the shaded orbital sets of whic
• 10 11 a burnIng QuEStIon chemical conflagrations Most things around us are compounds, or mixtures of
• 12 13 bondIng atomic stickiness Molecules are formed as atoms outer electrons share dances. Losing
• 14 15 cryStalS building bigger Crystals are simple repeated patterns of unit cells. Like apples on
• 16 17 hydrogEn hElIum the first two elements Hydrogen makes up three quarters of all known matter i
• 18 19 alkalI alkalInEEarth mEtalS the violent world of the sblock The first real group of the perio
• 20 21 thE Pblock metals, metalloids and nonmetals Elements five to ten are the first members of the
• 22 23 carbon SIlIcon organic and virtual thinking materials Twentythree percent of you is carbon.
• 24 25 dna the elements of life Deoxyribonucleic acid, DNA to its friends, is the incredible long cha
• 26 27 oxygEn SulPhur the over and underworlds of group VI A A fifth of the air we breathe is oxygen
• 28 29 WatEr acIdS making a splash Water is the most common molecule in the universe. One oxygen an
• 30 31 halogEnS thE noblE gaSES ups and downs at periods end The universes most inert and vigorous e
• 32 33 thE tranSItIon mEtalS gold, silver, copper and iron in the dblock The next zone of the periodi
• 34 35 thE fblock SuPErhEavIES enormous atoms and islands of stability At lanthanum, element fiftyse
• 36 37 radIoactIvIty nuclear fizzicks An atomic nucleus, held together by immensely strong forces, co
• 38 39 orbItal StructurES the whirly world of the very small At the scale of fundamental particles l
• 40 41 Quantum mEchanIcS curiouser and curiouser Deep inside the nucleons, the protons and neutrons,
• 42 43 thE four forcES holding the universe together All things interact with each other through four
• 44 45 QuarkS, lEPtonS mESonS fundamental families The everyday matter of the universe is made of up
• 46 47 ExotIc PartIclES subatomic siblings Cosmic rays hitting the upper atmosphere ionize atoms, cr
• 48 49 thE bIg bang from small beginnings Once, according to a popular story, seemingly from nowhere,
• 50 51 StEllar fuSIon making the sun shine We are born of stars. All of our atoms, except for primal
• 52 53 StrIngS thIngS bubbles and branes The more we probe into the wispy knottings of wave matter s
• 54 55 carbon chEmIStry conStantS and hadronS Name Functional Suffix
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