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Theodore Gray

Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe Hardcover – October 1, 2009

by Theodore Gray (Author), Nick Mann (Photographer)

1,305 ratings

Book 1 of 3 in the Elements Series

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The Elements has become an international sensation, with over one million copies in-print worldwide.

An eye-opening, original collection of gorgeous, never-before-seen photographic representations of the 118 elements in the periodic table.

The elements are what we, and everything around us, are made of. But how many elements has anyone actually seen in pure, uncombined form? The Elements provides this rare opportunity. Based on seven years of research and photography, the pictures in this book make up the most complete, and visually arresting, representation available to the naked eye of every atom in the universe. Organized in order of appearance on the periodic table, each element is represented by a spread that includes a stunning, full-page, full-color photograph that most closely represents it in its purest form. For example, at -183°C, oxygen turns from a colorless gas to a beautiful pale blue liquid.

Also included are fascinating facts, figures, and stories of the elements as well as data on the properties of each, including atomic weight, density, melting and boiling point, valence, electronegativity, and the year and location in which it was discovered. Several additional photographs show each element in slightly altered forms or as used in various practical ways. The element's position on the periodic table is pinpointed on a mini rendering of the table and an illustrated scale of the element's boiling and/or melting points appears on each page along with a density scale that runs along the bottom.

Packed with interesting information, this combination of solid science and stunning artistic photographs is the perfect gift book for every sentient creature in the universe.

Includes a tear-out poster of Theodore Gray's iconic Photographic Periodic Table!

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Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Gray, an element collector and Popular Science columnist, has created a visual homage to the periodic table of the elements. The book begins with an introduction to the arrangement of the periodic table. The first 100 of the elements are each profiled on a two-page spread. The left-hand side of the spread features a large color image of the element in its true form, when possible. The right-hand side includes various images of ways the element appears in the world and explanations of some of the compounds in which it can be found. For example, the Selenium entry includes images of selenium sulfide medicated shampoo, Brazil nuts (which are high in selenium), and a red vase that gets its color from a selenium glaze. Most of the images are items from the author�s personal collection. A column running down the right-hand page offers information on the element�s location in the periodic table and its atomic weight, density, atomic radius, and crystal structure in addition to charts portraying its electron order filling, atomic emission spectrum, and states of matter at various temperatures. Because of their instability and short half-life, or because they have not yet been discovered, elements 101 through 118 are presented in two groups of nine. The volume concludes with a brief bibliography and an index in addition to a foldout poster of the periodic table. This eye-catching book is certain to appeal to students and casual browsers alike. --Maren Ostergard

Review

Praise for The Elements:

"I don't know if this is the first coffee-table book paying lush photographic homage to the periodic table, but it is certainly the most gorgeous one I've seen." —John Tierney, The New York Times

"The Elements is a loving reimagination of the classic table." —Wired

"Gray's trademark dry wit and historical anecdotes bring even the most basic lumps to life." —Popular Science

"A great mix of science and art." —Discover

Hardcover: 240 pages
Publisher: Black Dog & Leventhal (October 1, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 9781579128142
ISBN-13: 978-1579128142
ASIN: 1579128149
Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 1 x 10.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 3.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Customer Reviews: 1,305 customer ratings
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #21,738 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #25 in General Chemistry
- #139 in History & Philosophy of Science (Books)
- #4 in Molecular Physics (Books)

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4 star		8%
3 star		2%
2 star		2%
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Lynne

Strays too far from facts, into personal thoughts and opinions.

Reviewed in the United States on March 1, 2018

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I like that the elements are presented in order, however, I do NOT like that this doesn't just present the facts of the elements. The author puts in his personal opinions about evolution and politics into this book. It's a book about elements, there are too many base facts about them for personal opinions to be included. When my children and I got to silicon, almost the entire page was about evolution. It also gets into the political, so annoying.

74 people found this helpful

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AZN CUST NC

Fantastic Science Book

Reviewed in the United States on July 16, 2016

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I wish I had this book when I was struggling with chemistry back in high school. My daughter will soon finish her undergraduate degree in Chemistry and I thought she might enjoy this based on the description. It came in the mail this morning and I have spent six hours reading from it. There is so much information packed in charts on the right hand side that I know will mean more to her about the shape, atomic number, spectral reading and other technical stuff. To see the raw element, and then common ways we encounter the element in compounds or ways it is used by the human body, or stories about how much or little of the element exists and why - I would find it interesting to look at or browse as an upper elementary or middle school student and by high school - if that spark of interest is there THIS BOOK SHOULD SET A LEARNER ON FIRE. This is coming from a poor chemistry student but a fired up musician and computer expert who also gave 9 years to educating others. Now I want to understand what my educated children are talking about well enough that I don't have a blank look on my face.

Am I a bad mom for reading her present before I give it to her?

41 people found this helpful

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in1ear (John Row)

KINDLE VERSION The Elements: A Visual Exploration...

Reviewed in the United States on February 6, 2015

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This is a review of the KINDLE version of The Elements: A Visual Exploration... The Kindle version DOES contain the photographs, charts and illustrations . Done beautifully. You may think this a silly point, but many Kindle books do not contain these when the print version's total value is diminished in the translation to e-book. Good job, Amazon.

75 people found this helpful

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GJACKSON

Great Value. Exceptional Quality.

Reviewed in the United States on August 4, 2018

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Awesome!

I'm only up to Krypton, but the book is great. The author is humorous and smart. His choice of factoids to include about each element are informative and fascinating. The photography is AMAZING.
There are some easily overlooked features along the right edge of each page.
The Atomic Emission Spectrum off each element is shown.
There is a graph that shows the order in which the electron fill the various orbitals. Curiously, Potassium and Calcium filled the 4s orbital before the elements 21 - 28 begin filling the 3d orbital. Then Copper Robs an electron from the already full 4s orbital to complete the 3d orbital! What! Only in that graph would such a phenomenon be noticeable.
The State of Matter shows the temperature that each element changes State. You think ... boring. But if you fan the pages slightly, a pattern is revealed of the increasing and the decreasing melting/boiling points relative to the number of valence electrons. Fascinating!

My only negative is the Bohr's Model of the electrons (located to the right of the Atomic Radius value) on some pages is very small and it is hard to determine where the additional electron was placed.

IMPORTANT: Purchase a pair of white gloves to wear while handling the book. Your Fingerprints are QUITE visible and cannot be removed completely once present. Washing hands prior only works for a very short period of time.

5 people found this helpful

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Lovely Reader

I cannot say enough about this beautiful book! My son is studying chemistry in our ...

Reviewed in the United States on May 21, 2016

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I cannot say enough about this beautiful book! My son is studying chemistry in our homeschool. I am so glad I bought this book to accompany his study. Each element has a two page spread where it gives you real photographs of the element itself, as well as, items that are made from that element. Also gives you atomic number, mass, structure, as well as more information. There is also about a 4-6t paragraph blurb of information or history on each element. Along with a beautiful mini pull out poster of elements. This book is gorgeous and I am so glad we have it!

21 people found this helpful

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As Gorgeous and As Fascinating As Promised

Reviewed in the United States on February 24, 2016

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I couldn't imagine that this book, especially as a paperback, could be as good as all of the effusive blurbs promised. Well, I was wrong. The book is everything that was promised, and more.

We start with a crisp tour through the periodic table and an excellent description of the latest quantum explanations of how electron shells can be best understood. I don't know if you could go from no background whatsoever to an understanding of this topic, but if you have any chemistry/physics background at all then close reading of this several page intro should bring you back up to speed. After that intro you get an explanation of the info-graphs that provide basic data for each element, on each element's page, on electron arrangements, crystal structure, physical characteristics and the like. This is useful and interesting, but not essential material.

The star of the show is the two page treatment of each element, that covers the element's pure form and its most common combined forms. The breezy narrative that sums up each element is entertaining and informative.

The upshot is that this book ends up being the most visually stunning bathroom-coffeetable book, ever. What a happy find.

15 people found this helpful

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E. Wainwright

Each element is beautifully represented on its own

Reviewed in the United States on October 29, 2017

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We purchased this book as a part of my home schooled high schoolers chemistry curriculum. I had no idea what to expect, but purchased out of necessity. I was BLOWN AWAY! Had I known this existed I would have searched it out. Each element is beautifully represented on its own, and then in incarnations of everyday life. For example" V:Vandium is shown in its natural state, and then as a tool, as vanadium steel is used in many tools found in hardware stores!

12 people found this helpful

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A. Wallis

Inspired by mine craft

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 16, 2015

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Great book - very visual and not at all stuffy old school. I bought it for a 9 year old interested in science, who has only been introduced to the periodic table through mine craft. He has started to ask questions about elements and what they are. Wanted to show him that the REAL elements are different and not like the mine craft ones. He is particularly interested in radioactive substances, this book was ideal in explaining what uranium was to satisfy his curiosity. It's a great book to dip in and out of, I wouldn't expect him to read it cover to cover, (although it is under his pillow). There is a double page colourful spread for each element, and the text is very readable. It is ordered in a way sympathetic to the periodic table. I love that practical everyday objects are used to illustrate what the elements are and how we use them in everyday life. Takes you up to secondary level science concepts, but in a way younger children may find interesting. He likes to categorise, order and group things, so this is right up his street. Found it when searching for a periodic table poster on line. Would quite like to get the cards that go with the book, and the poster. Also the book about molecules from the same series. I do think that when kids ask questions about a topic it's fine to give them text that takes them beyond what they may be doing at school. Hopefully it will make chemistry look interesting rather than scary, by the time he reaches secondary school.

9 people found this helpful

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Dev Preston

Great book, perhaps paper version is best.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 21, 2016

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This is a beautiful, engaging and informative book. This review focuses on the experience of reading the Kindle version. I'm reading 'Elements' on my compact phone's Kindle app.

Despite my use of a small screen, the images are clean and beautiful, easily zoomed to look at almost all the info in detail. The book certainly benefits from a colour screen - colour coding and representations of actual colours in nature are an integral part of the element descriptions.

Kindle (app) downsides:
-The author describes how the pages of the physical book can be slightly fanned so that the page edges show trends in melting and boiling points, but there is no Kindle equivalent.
-The scales for electron orbital filling are divided into small gradations with small labels. These, and the long, thin colour signature charts, are difficult for me to zoom enough to read well: I simultaneously need to zoom in more to read the detail and zoom out more to get an overview of the chart contents.
- This is a great book to dip in to, or to read in a different order in the one laid out. The bookmark and sync-to-furthest-read options on Kindle don't really help with keeping track with this type of reading, and flicking through to browse is relatively slow with large images to load for each element.
- If your device has little storage space, now might not be the time to download this book.

I recommend this book for anyone with any interest in chemistry, no matter what level of existing knowledge. Do consider if you'd be better with a hard copy.

2 people found this helpful

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JLPicard

Perfect for kids with an interest in science - seriously!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 6, 2017

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Was on my son's school's recommended reading list.
I bought it for him and he loves it!
When he first got it, he stopped reading other books and even preferred reading this to watching TV.
He would regularly share amazing facts he had read in the book.
Has had it now for several months and I still continues to go back to it occasionally.
Recently pestered me to get him the new companion Molecules book and is hooked on that now too!

One person found this helpful

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sunra59

I'm hoping this entertaining resource will yet prove useful while watching University Challenge ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 8, 2016

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As a child science really wasn't my thing, but while mathematics still leaves me cold, an entertainingly written book like this provides a wonderful window into the varied cast (some reliable, some eccentric, some a little dull) of elements that make up the periodic table. It's a bit like reading that long list of technicians, supervisors, and stunt men, that scroll passed you all too quickly at the end of a blockbusting film. A great read. An extremely useful resource. And a bit of science in my life where there otherwise might not be any. Highly recommended.

One person found this helpful

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David Getling

Delivers what it promises

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 13, 2013

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Sight is our most important sense, and so it's always nice to see what something looks like. As most of us aren't going to hold a physical specimen of each element in our hands, this book is a good proxy for that.

It was nice to see what most elements and some of their ores looked like. My only very small criticism would be that for something like sulphur I would like to have seen some good pictures of its allotropes: some perfect rhombic crystals produced from dissolving sulphur in carbon disulphide, a nice magnified shot of freshly prepared monoclinic sulphur, and maybe a small weight hanging from some plastic sulphur.

But this is a very minor concern for a book which I found a visual delight and am glad I purchased.

2 people found this helpful

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Mousley

Nicely presented, a little dumbed down...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 11, 2013

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This book is an interesting book (if you are like me, as my girlfriend calls me 'a nerd') and has lots of images of the elements and compounds and artifacts that each element is used in / for....however, the information is very simplified, but at the same time includes quite abstract info, such as line spectra and atomic radii for each element...I would like the book to have had a bit more of an in depth coverage of each element, rather than very basic info combined with very high level info that has just been taken from a chemistry / physics text book.

5 people found this helpful

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Aj Finch

Educational, Insiprational

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 19, 2014

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The big pages are beautifully printed.
The photographs are beautifully done.
Everything is clear and nicely explained. The entries are not formulaic, so it's not just dry facts and figures. Each element has some unique nuggets of information (as well as the usual atomic weight etc.).
... But this is more than a reference book. The beautiful production values make it more than that. It's a slightly geeky coffee-table book.
I gave a copy to my son, and it makes an excellent compainon to the "Itch" series of books by Simon Mayo

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A. Nonymous

Love this book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 23, 2015

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Love this book. Interesting, accessibly written, and with some excellent high quality photographs of the elements and where you will find them in everyday objects. The whole family has flicked through it and found themselves reading interesting entries - well worth a look!

Also comes with your own periodic table of elements, with photos for each element. For those who want to learn not just about the elements, but how the elements relate to everyday objects around us, it is highly recommended

2 people found this helpful

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AGW

Fascinating lovely book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 9, 2010

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This is a beautifully produced book, and the contents are fascinating. If you want to understand more of the variety of the elements and how they are grouped in families, do start here. Wonderful photographs, descriptions of the nature and family group of each element, how they are used, and if you want a little more on atomic numbers and such like, thats there as well. I did A Level Chemistry 43 years ago, and this was a delightful re-entry into the world of the elements. Learnt lots and lots I didnt learn then, Unhesitatingly recommend this colourful and well written book.

12 people found this helpful

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Chris D

Great online version of the book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 21, 2019

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Great online read and actually funny comments by an obviously talented author, pictures are wonderful. I will probably buy the hardback if I can get it at a fair price....

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Roy

Enjoyable

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 10, 2011

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This book covers 100 of the elements of the Periodic Table each with its own two page spread (the last 18 elements get a short mention only). Has many glorious colour shots and a 'friendly' write up of facts about each element. Much more of a 'coffee table' style of book than an in depth scientific study, it never the less is a most absorbing book that I keep picking up and putting down as I work my way through natures building blocks.

8 people found this helpful

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B. Douglas

Gorgeous!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 19, 2017

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What a gorgeous book. I bought this for my 10 year old who is mad about chemistry, but all of us have been picking it up and perusing it in wonder, including the daughter who has a degree in physics ...

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Mozillate Wildly

Atomic Po Rn

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 9, 2013

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The best way to sum up this book is element porn! A visual guide to all of the 118 known elements (ok some aren't visual) with information and pictures of what the elements look like and can be used for. Also has information on the atomic structure of each element. Written in an entertaining style (the author describes the alkali metals as "fun to throw into lakes!) and is full of great facts such as how gallium can be turned from a solid to a liquid if you hold it in your hands of a short while. Like a lovely metal piece of chocolate! Read this book so you can answer one of my favourite questions to ask - "What's your favourite element?!" Mine is probably Astatine (85) mainly for the sole fact of its short half-life means that around an ounce of it is present in the entire earth at once and it decays so quickly that it's never the same ounce day to day

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Meanioni

Great book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 20, 2015

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Visually stunning book - great to leave out as a glossy "coffee table book" and has attracted the attention of many of our visitors. Also good as a reference book.

Written in a light and humourous style but also has relevant information on every element. Superb photos of every element in its various forms (plus pictures of what they are used in).

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Graphic and exciting!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 24, 2019

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Great visual representation ,my son and his friends loved it !

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