Customer Reviews

Molecules at an Exhibition: Portraits of Intriguing Materials in Everyday Life

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Molecules might seem an unlikely topic for a popular work, but the author is one of those rare teachers who can breathe life into the most unpromising subject. This work is a guided tour through some of the most interesting materials on earth - or perhaps this is Emsley's art.
He has organized his subjects thematically in broad areas such as health, transport, and the environment, with eight galleries of a dozen portraits each. The history of each is traced, with information on its structure, origin, and its role in our world. Some substances, such as selenium, prove unexpectedly vital. Others, such as Sarin, the terrorists' nerve gas, began innocuously enough but have been adopted for evil purposes. Still others hold the key to the secret of chocolate, how Teflon sticks to pans, and possibly a clean, renewable fuel for the future. All are interesting.
The alchemy is Emsley's transmutation of chemistry into entertaining instruction.

(The "score" rating is an ineradicable feature of the page. This reviewer does not "score" books.)

"Molecules at an Exhibition: Portraits of Intriguing Materials in Everyday Life" written by John Emsley in a very intriguing book to say the least, filled with anecdotal and fascinating science. If you've ever wanted to know something more about everyday chemistry this is the book for you. This book should be read by all high school chemistry teachers to bring this information to their respective classes.

I found this book to be a treasure trove of information about things that are now common in everyday life but at one time they were great breakthroughs. Like the information given about what's really in Coca-Cola... neither Coca leaves nor Cola nuts, but rather that the blending of ingrediants such as blended oils of lemon (120 parts), orange (80), nutmeg (40), cinnamon (40), neroli (40) and coriandor (20). These were blended in a special way only by Dr. John Pemberton a pharmacist to produce what we know as formula 7X for Coca-Cola the drink that he invented.

There are intriguing questions that are answered throughout this narrative text as to what is it in chocolate that makes us feel good, what is the chean, cold fuel for the coming century, and what's the molecule that turns men on? These are but a few of the questions that answers abound in this book as we read on.

You'll find that the narrative is informative as it is anecdotal and there are a lot of surprises as you read on in the text. The book is set up in galleries rather then chapters as the author showcases like materials. They are as follows:

Gallery 1 Nearly as nature intended
Gallery 2 Testing your metal
Gallery 3 Starting lives, saving lives screwing up lives
Gallery 4 Home, sweet home
Gallery 5 Material progress and immaterial observations
Gallery 6 Landscape room: environmentail cons, concerns
Gallery 7 We're on the road to nowhere
Gallery 8 Elements from hell

You need not have a degree in chemistry to understand this book as it is written in plain and easily understandable language as there are no chemical formulas, equations, or molecular diagrams, but the is a list of other books you can consult at the end of the book.

I gave "Molecules at an Exhibition" a solid 5 stars for being informative and educational and answering many questions about things in everyday life that makes todays life easier.

Mr. Elmsley is a stylist potent enough to make what to most people is a ho-hum subject into interesting reading. As a budding chemist myself I am not of that ilk; even so a person with the least bit of curiosity about how things work will be enlightened and entertained by Elmsley's exposition about chemistry as it affects our everyday lives.

The expostion is titled in imitation of Moussorgsky's pictures at an Exposition and refers to the loose organization of essays around topics, e.g., the chemistry of polymers.

The essays are somewhat uneven, however, in terms of the energy behind their creation and, consequently, the volume of interest they might generate. These essays were created by the author over a largish period of time, as he writes a column for a British newspaper on chemical topics. The essay on penicillin, for example, is of some antiquity. And it is just here I find the greatest fault with Elmsley's writing. During the development of penicillin, which took place during the Second War, its British originators wanted to patent it, but were vetoed by their group leader on the grounds that things of great humanitarian value as this would surely prove to be should not be privatized. This is made out to be a value of the English character. Since the Islands were under Luftwaffe attack, the mass production of the first antibiotic was taken to America where the strain of mold was expropriated and patented by one of the local scientists, a dasdardly act that, of course, made him rich. SUch ruthlessness is made out to be a feature of the American character by Elmsley. Sorry, John.

I use this book to enhance my high school chemistry class. Reading from this book allows my students to see how chemistry really works in their everyday lives. They see connections and often I hear "ahh... " or "cool!" Every Monday I pick a chemical and list it on the board as "chemical of the week". We then read about them on Fridays and discuss. This book is a great way to put some real-life applications into a chemistry class.

Its one of those anecdotical and thought provocking essays on the subject of chemistry.. while telling the story, you actually learn something and not necessarily in chemistry, this is what makes the book so interesting.

If you are like me, not crazy to be a chemist wiz, but like to have functinal knowledge of what materials and compunds affect you everyday, then this is the book. Also it serves as stepping stones or lateral-thought provocations that will make you have other points of view open.

Molecules at an Exhibition is a thorough look at some of the molecules/elements that are used by us everyday. the book is broken up into helpful sections [by molecule]which make finding a topic easy. each section has a brief description and sometimes a history of the molecule and its uses. mostly, this book deals with the modern and possibly future uses for these molecules. the information in this book is very useful and gives you a different perspective on everyday items we use, such as penicillin and all kinds of plastics. this book would be extremely helpful to a student researching a certain molecule or someone just mainly interested in them. some setbacks, however, were that the book is mainly just sections and there were many grammatical errors in the book making reading sometimes difficult. overall it was a good informational book packed with many tidbits that would be most useful to a student.

Have you ever wondered about the chemistry behind everyday materials like salt, fuels, caffeine or medicine? This book takes a bunch of molecules familiar to most people, either from their everyday life or from news headlines and explores them from a chemist's point of view.

The result is an intriguing book, written in an enthusiastic and friendly style. It doesn't take much understanding of chemistry to follow Emsley and he offers interesting perspectives to everyday materials. Molecules at an Exhibition is a good and entertaining way to increase one's knowledge on chemistry. (Review based on the Finnish translation.)

Apt title; reads like a trivia reference book. Snapshots of molecules with brief recounting of history, chemistry and uses. Somewhat entertaining. Can seem dry. A decent coffee table book.