In chapter 1, Sam Kean expresses the frustrations of many students when it comes to the periodic table but proposed that every teach, when introducing the periodic table, should look at it blank. He then portrays the periodic table as a map that helps you not only understand it but guide you. He introduces the first of the 18 columns as noble gases whose birth place is in Greece. He then illustrates the history of Plato and his love for geometry and everything concerning the theory of "form": ideal forms. This is where Helium becomes important because it is the best known element with an ideal form or best form of "element-ness". As a substance that cannot be broken down or altered by other elements it is put under the group of noble gases along with neon, argon, and krypton. He then expresses how all elements have electrons on the energy levels of each element and they must have the right amount if not they will share or steal electrons until they are satisfied making them ions.
Kean later transitions to introduce Gilbert Lewis who attended school in Massachusetts and studied under German chemist Walther Nernst. He change the definition of acids as electron thiefs instead of proton donors. Bases such as bleach are then the electron donors. This better helps us understand the behavior of electrons but was unfortunately not enough for Lewis to win the Nobel Prize for his research was broad rather than deep. He then begins to talk about the acids and how they are measured on the pH scale which is similar to the Richter scale when measuring the strength of earthquakes. The scale reaches from 1 being the most acidic, HCL stomach acid, to 7 ,being neutral water, then to a base being 14. Going from 4 to 3 boosts the acid strength by 10 times. So when the acid, carborane, was discovered to be -18 on the pH scale you can only imagine the strength. He then concludes with Maria Goeppert- Mayer. Geoppert- Mayer was born in Germany and earned her doctorate at the University of Hannover and then married Joseph Mayer an American Chemist. As a women in the early 1900s it was hard for her to practice her love for science when no one would hire her or even pay her for jobs she would do. She asked a very important question; why was there an abundance of a specific element such as oxygen rather than lithium which should be the third most abundant element? She later discovered through many unlinked experiments that nuclei have shell who she called magic nuclei which was the key to understanding that some elements with atomic numbers 2,8,25, and so on are much more stable and abundant. This goes back to Plato's belief of perfect forms; the more perfect the nuclei the more stable it is and the less likely they are able to disintegrate. She was later finally recognized for her achievements by winning the Nobel Prize.
Personally, I really liked this chapter and was very intrigued by it. Although, I did know a lot of information Kean said, this gave me a much better understanding on the elements and how I should look at them. I do like the analogies he uses in explaining this chapter. There was hardly anything that I didn't like. The most interesting thing that I learned was Plato's theory of form and Maria Geoppert- Mayer's story that really inspired me. One interesting thing that I would tell my "bae" would probably be why there is a lot of oxygen in the world rather than lithium, which sounds like a useless fact, but I think it's interesting.
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