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The Elements: A Very Short Introduction VERY SHORT INTRODUCTIONS are for anyone wanting a stimulating and accessible way in to a new subject. They are written by experts, and have been published in more than 25 languages worldwide. The series began in 1995, and now represents a wide variety of topics in history, philosophy, religion, science, and the humanities. Over the next few years it will grow to a library of around 200 volumes- a Very Short Introduction to everything from ancient Egypt and Indian philosophy to conceptual art and cosmology. Very Short Introductions available now: ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY Julia Annas Simon Critchley THE ANGLO-SAXON AGE COSMOLOGY Peter Coles John Blair CRYPTOGRAPHY ANIMAL RIGHTS Fred Piper and Sean Murphy David DeGrazia DARWIN Jonathan Howard ARCHAEOLOGY Paul Bahn DEMOCRACY Bernard Crick ARCHITECTURE DESCARTES Tom Sorell Andrew Ballantyne DRUGS Leslie Iversen ARISTOTLE Jonathan Barnes T H E EA RT H Martin Redfern ART HISTORY Dana Arnold EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ART THEORY BRITAIN Paul Langford Cynthia Freeland EMOTION Dylan Evans THE HISTORYOF EMPIRE Stephen Howe ASTRONOMY Michael Hoskin ENGELS Terrell Carver ATHEISM Julian Baggini ETHICS Simon Blackburn AUGUSTINE HenryChadwick THE EUROPEAN UNION BARTHES Jonathan Culler John Pinder THE BIBLE John Riches EVOLUTION BRITISH POLITICS Brian and Deborah Charlesworth Anthony Wright FASCISM Kevin Pass mo re BUDDHA Michael Carrithers THE FRENCH REVOLUTION BUDDHISM DamienKeown William Doyle THE CELTS Barry Cunliffe FREUD Anthony Storr CHOICETHEORY GALILEO Stillman Drake Michael Allingham GANDHI BhikhuParekh CLASSICS Mary Beard and GLOBALIZATION John Henderson Manfred Steger CLAUSEWITZ Michael Howard HEGEL Peter Singer THE COLD WAR HEIDEGGER Michael Inwood Robert McMahon HINDUISM KimKnott HISTORY John H.Arnold POLITICS Kenneth Minogue HOBBE5 Richard Tuck POSTCOLONIALISM HUME A.J.Ayer Robert Young IDEOLOGY Michael Freeden POSTMODERNISM INDIAN PHILOSOPHY Christopher Butler Sue Hamilton POSTSTRUCTURALI5M INTELLIGENCE IanJ. Deary Catherine Belsey ISLAM Malise Ruthven PREHISTORY Chris Gosden JUDAISM Norman Solomon PSYCHOLOGY Gillian Butler and JUNG Anthony Stevens Freda McManus KANT Roger Scruton QUANTUM THEORY KIERKEGAARD John Polkinghorne Patrick Gardiner ROMAN BRITAIN THE KORAN Michael Cook Peter Salway LINGUISTICS Peter Matthews ROUSSEAU Robert Wokler LITERARY THEORY RUSSELL A. C. Grayling Jonathan Culler RUSSIAN LITERATURE LOCKE John Dunn Catriona Kelly LOGIC Graham Priest THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION MACHIAVELLI Quentin Skinner S. A. Smith MARX Peter Singer SCHIZOPHRENIA MATHEMATICS Chris Frith and Evejohnstone Timothy Gowers SCHOPENHAUER MEDIEVAL BRITAIN Christopher Janaway John Gillingham and SHAKESPEARE Germaine Greer Ralph A. Griffiths SOCIAL AND CULTURAL MODERN IRELAND ANTHROPOLOGY Senia Paseta John Monaghan and Peter Just MUSIC Nicholas Cook SOCIOLOGY Steve Bruce NIETZSCHE Michael Tanner SOCRATES C. C. W.Taylor NINETEENTH-CENTURY SPINOZA Roger Scruton BRITAIN Christopher Harvie and STUART BRITAIN H. C. G. Matthew John Morrill NORTHERN IRELAND TERRORISM Charles Townshend Marc Mulholland THEOLOGY David F. Ford PAUL E. P. Sanders THE TUDORS John Guy PHILOSOPHY Edward Craig TWENTIETH-CENTURY PHILOSOPHYOFSCIENCE BRITAIN Kenneth O. Morgan Samir Okasha WITTGENSTEIN A. C Grayling PLATO Julia Annas WORLD MUSIC Philip Bohlman Available soon: AFRICAN HISTORY FUNDAMENTALISM John Parker and Richard Rathbone Malise Ruthven ANCIENT EGYPT Ian Shaw HABERMAS Gordon Finlayson THE BRAIN Michael O'Shea HIEROGLYPHS BUDDHIST ETHICS Penelope Wilson Damien Keown HIROSHIMA B. R.Tomlinson CAPITALISM James Fulcher HUMAN EVOLUTION CHAOS Leonard Smith Bernard Wood CHRISTIAN ART Beth Williamson INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS CHRISTIANITY Linda Woodhead Paul Wilkinson CITIZENSHIP Richard Bellamy JAZZ Brian Morton CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE MANDELA Tom Lodge Robert Tavernor MEDICAL ETHICS Tony Hope CLONING ArleneJudith Klotzko THE MIND Martin Davies CONTEMPORARYART MOLECULES Philip Ball Julian Stallabrass MYTH Robert Segal THE CRUSADES NATIONALISM Steven Crosby Christopher Tyerman PERCEPTION Richard Gregory DADAAND SURREALISM PHILOSOPHYOF RELIGION David Hopkins Jack Copeland and Diane Proudfoot DERRIDA Simon Glendinning PHOTOGRAHY Steve Edwards DESIGN JohnHeskett THE PRESOCRATICS DINOSAURS David Norman Catherine Osborne DREAMING J. Allan Hobson THE RAJ DenisJudd ECONOMICS Partha Dasgupta THE RENAISSANCE EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY Jerry Brotton Geraldine Pinch RENAISSANCEART THE ELEMENTS Philip Ball Geraldine Johnson THE END OF THE WORLD SARTRE Christina Howells Bill McGuire THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR EXISTENTIALISM Thomas Flynn Helen Graham THE FIRST WORLD WAR TRAGEDY Adrian Poole Michael Howard THE TWENTIETH CENTURY FREEWILL Thomas Pink Martin Conway For more information visit our web site www.oup.co.uk/vsi Philip Ball THE ELEMENTS A Very Short Introduction OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6DP Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Sao Paulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Philip Ball 2002 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published as The Ingredients 2002 First published as a Very Short Introduction 2004 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organizations. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available ISBN 10: 0-19-284099-1 ISBN 13: 978-0-19-284099-8 3579 10 8642 Typeset by RefineCatch Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk Printed in Great Britain by Ashford Colour Press Ltd., Gosport, Hants Preface When I was asked to write an introduction to the elements as a companion volume to my book Stories of the Invisible, itself an introduction to molecules, I had mixed feelings. After all, in the earlier book I had been perhaps less than respectful towards the Periodic Table, that famous portrait of all the known chemical elements. Specifically, I had suggested that chemists cease to promote the notion that chemistry begins with this table, since a basic understanding of molecular science need embrace only a very limited selection of the hundred or more elements that the table now contains. No piano tutor would start by instructing a young pupil to play every note on the keyboard. Far better to show how just a few keys suffice for constructing a host of simple tunes. As music is about tunes, chords, and harmonies, not notes per se, so chemistry is about compounds and molecules, not elements. But no one who is a chemist at heart can resist the elements, and that includes me. It includes Oliver Sacks too, who as a boy set about collecting the elements as most other boys collected stamps or coins. He wanted to own them all. In the 1940s it was not so hard to add to one's collection: Sacks could go to Griffin & Tatlock in Finchley, north London, and spend his pocket money on a lump of sodium, which he would then send fizzing over the surface of Highgate Ponds near his home. I envy him; the best I could do was to smuggle lumps of sulphur and bottles of mercury out of the school laboratory. These elements were like precious stones or exquisite confectioneries. I wanted to touch and smell them, although prudence held me back from tasting. This tactile, sensual experience was made more poignant by the knowledge that these substances were pure, unalloyed, irreducible. They were the primal stuff of creation, sitting in my hand. So I knew I would not be able to resist the lure of writing about the elements. But I began to see also that an introduction to the elements need not after all become a tour of the Periodic Table—which anyway others have conducted before me, and more skilfully or more exhaustively than I would be able to manage. The story of the elements is the story of our relationship with matter, something that predates any notion of the Periodic Table. Intimacy with matter does not depend on a detailed knowledge of silicon, phosphorus, and molybdenum; it flows from the pleasurable density of a silver ingot, the cool sweetness of water, the smoothness of polished jade. That is the source of the fundamental question: what is the world made from? So there are 'elements' in this book that you will find in no Periodic Table: water and air, salt, subtle phlogiston. No matter that chemistry has now pulled them apart or banished them entirely; they are part of the table's legacy, and part of our pool of cultural symbols. I am extremely grateful for the comments, advice, and materials I have received on various specific topics in this book from Al Ghiorso, Darleane Hoffmann, Scott Lehman, Jens N0rskov, and Jim White. My thanks go also to Shelley Cox for her enthusiasm and faith in commissioning the book. Philip Ball London March 2002 Contents List of figures x 1 Aristotle's quartet: The elements in antiquity 1 2 Revolution: How oxygen changed the world 21 3 Gold: The glorious and accursed element 40 4 The eightfold path: Organizing the elements 65 5 The atom factories: Making new elements 91 6 The chemical brothers: Why isotopes are useful 118 7 For all practical purposes: Technologies of the elements 139 Notes 159 Further reading 164 Index 165
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