The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean Chapter 14 Summary/Reflection

1. Johann Von Goethe was a German man who studied in every field that existed literally .  He was great in literature, but in science, whatever was more aesthetically pleasing he believed in, my spirit animal.
2. To establish a way of organizing the elements based on properties.  Iron, nickel, and cobalt, could be considered a triad due to nickels mass being a mean of Iron and Cobalt.
3. Predicted the effects of the discovery of radiation in the world
4. His brain lacked a certain salt that changed his behavior, i guess you can say it made him salty (pun intended)
5. Alloys

In chapter 14, Kean talks about how money and science come hand and hand. As science became more and more expensive, the people who could actually do the mind blowing discoveries were the people who had the money to do it (obviously that’s pretty messed up). The author then turns to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe who was a writer that enjoyed making bold claims or statements about science and politics even though he wasn't really an expert in either subjects. One major bold claim Goethe made was that of double replacement reactions. He used the analogy of marriage to describe it, the whole thing would work by having each person falling in love with another person in the other marriage. Although Goethe made absurd claims, he did help launch the career of another Johann, Johann Dobereiner.

                      Robert Lowell s then lastly mentioned. Lowell wasn't all there. He suffered through episodes of madness, his best work came from them. People did however enjoyed the work of Lowell. One time he was stuttering in front of a friend's house that he was the Virgin Mary. Another episode had him trying to stop cars by spreading his arms like Jesus. Nothing was available back then to help with this madness until lithium came along. Lithium became the first mood stabilizer which I honestly need some right now. Lithium prevents the next episode from happening and it regulates the proteins that makes this happen.

                      This chapter was very interesting to me because it focused on literary artists and their effect even in the smallest bits by the elements.  The stories about Mark Twain were cool too.