Mystery of the Periodic Table (Living History Library)

When our homeschool materials order arrived in the mail, I planned on looking through things to see if I wanted to return anything. Well, I ended up reading through this and going to bed at one am! Chemistry was something I 'got through' in high school. But this book was so engaging and interesting, and so clearly laid out the development of modern Chemistry, that I was unwilling to put it down. It is written in a conversational tone, and speaks directly to the reader. It makes the early alchemists and the later chemists into real people with real investigative passions.There were two things that I really appreciated from this book which sort of surprised me: First, it was made evident that an intelligence was behind the elements. The book points out many ways that Chemistry is orderly, exact and not accidental. He doesn't say, "God invented the elements and their properties" but he has at least three paragraphs full of exclamation points and sentences which express wonder at the perfection that the chemists were astounded to find.Second, the author repeatedly describes how the chemist had the wrong idea but experimented the right way; or he had just the right idea, but made the wrong conclusion. I found these instances very encouraging, especially for the young scientist, because it explains that trial and error is a crucial part of finding out facts of science. I don't want my kids to research a question, make a hypothesis, do an experiment, get an unexpected result, and count it a total failure.The author also goes into some effort to show how the chemists of days past stumbled in a group effort spanning centuries to come to what is presently known as the Periodic Table. Until I read The Mystery of the Periodic Table, I thought that the periodic table was just a reference guide, and now I know it is a historical, methodical, even beautiful and interesting diagram. I think this book is an excellent value. I know of no other product like it that includes all the chemists and their experiments, sketches of their apparati, and how they worked off each other's contributions and change each others outlooks. It includes updates up to almost present day. It is an excellent explanation of many basic chemical elements; a few experiments; entirely comprised of biographies; easily God-glorifying; written in an exciting manner which carries the reader along.

Good book for elementary age. Very explanatory and easy to read, while also having a lot of good information.

This book is a history of chemistry from the stone age to the development of the periodic table, including the artificially-produced elements, plus a brief but tantalizing introduction to the hundreds of subatomic particles. If that sounds excruciatingly dull, all the more credit is due the author. Wiker obviously finds his subject fascinating, and explains it all clearly enough even for a mother who hadn't touched a chemistry text since 1975, with intriguing anecdotes of actual experiments and the curious characters who carried them out. Technical illustrations by T. Schluenderfritz are very helpful as well.Wiker presents both the power of the scientific method to arrive at truth over time, and the bizarre deviations caused by temporarily-held theories in the interim. My fifth-grader cheered on the historical characters as they made breakthroughs, reinforcing his appreciation for the scientific method, but at the same time he was moved to wonder which current theories will eventually prove false. I couldn't ask more of bedtime reading.

This is a well written, very clear presentation of the fundamental discoveries of chemistry. The book covers the history of chemistry and its basic concepts at a level appropriate for elementary-age children and can serve as a good review for an adult. I intend to use it in our home classroom. There is only one sentence in the book I object to, but since it is a deliberate falsehood meant to propagate religious dogma over scientific truth, I am subtracting one star from my rating. The author states that "control of fire," an essential pre-requisite for the development of chemistry and for man's ability to work in metals, occurred "during the Neolithic period," which on a separate page he defines as 7,000 to 4,000 BC. This is incorrect, and both the author and publisher are culpable in allowing such an obvious error. There is irrefutable overwhelming evidence that man used fire long, long before the development of agriculture, probably sometime around 250,000 years ago. The author is attempting to fit man's history into the 6,000-year-old-Earth of the Bible, an outdated conceit that was disproven more than two centuries ago and has no place in a science text, especially one designed to be part of a modern educational curriculum.

The history presented was fantastic. Although the audience for this book is children I learned a lot and filled in some gaps in my knowledge. I highly recommend this book.

As an 8th grade physical science teacher, I highly recommend this book for children and adults. It is very well-written, fun, interesting, and at times -- fascinating. I recommend this book as a must-read to any middle school or high school student that wants to pursue a career in the sciences, or any college student that needs to play catch-up. I recommend this book to other science teachers, and this book has made me a better science teacher -- it's that good! For non-scientists, I think it is a great history book that allows the reader to marvel at how humankind can work together, build and build upon the ideas of previous generations, struggle with mistakes for decades, and finally arrive at a brilliant understanding of something far too small to see or touch. It is amazing that human beings figured this all out, and this book tells this amazing story of human achievement. I love this book.

The pages aren’t even and the back cover is larger than the front cover. Content is excellent, though.

Great book! Highly recommend!

I have a number of Benjamin Wiker's books which cover a wide range of topics and as I was considering thePeriodic Table it was only fitting that I sought out this work ; and as with all the others I was not disappointed.A breezy walk along the road of chemical science and those who helped in its advance.

I home educate my children using the Charlotte Mason method and this living science book keeps the science alive and interesting, my 12 year old daughter has been really enjoying working her way through this book.

Excellent, my son read it the day it arrived.

Recipient of this book is very pleased with it.