1) One of my favorite things about The Disappearing Spoon
is the amazing breadth of knowledge that you bring to the exploration of the
periodic table. You write about history, biology, economics, mythology
and many other subjects. You majored in physics and literature and have a
master's in library science. With all these fascinating interests, what
inspired you to write a book about chemistry?
I actually don't consider it a book about chemistry! Or rather, it's
only partly about chemistry. It's really about the periodic table, and
I knew that the table intersects with so many different areas of life
that I wouldn't be limited to chemistry. As for why I started writing
the book, I knew a few of the tales from teachers and other sources
over the years, and I just thought it would be great to get them all
in one place, and cover the entire table, top to bottom, every
element. I really liked the idea of completeness there, since there
are so many elements we never get to talk about in class.
2) The structure of the book is unique, with the theme of
each chapter explored through seemingly disparate tales about a few relevant
elements. What was your original conception of what you wanted the book
to be? Did the end result surprise you?
Ha, well, actually I'd originally pictured the book with 118
individual chapters, one for each element. That got a little
cumbersome and choppy, so I had to re-evaluate and build composite
chapters. But I was pleasantly surprised that the chapters flowed
together pretty well. And it was indeed fun to yoke together disparate
elements. You'd expect to be able to link elements that are closely
related to each other, but when you can tease out a story about two
elements far distant on the table, that's very rewarding, and makes
you look at the table in a new way.
3) Did you have a favorite
chapter or story to write or research?
I really enjoyed the chapter about the Soviet-American element naming
war during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. It's probably the most
narrative chapter in the book, and it also illustrates so well the
messy way that real scientific research gets done.
4) Did you enjoy chemistry when you were in school?
Absolutely! I ended up studying physics because I was more
math-oriented in college, but I always found the chemistry labs
especially more fun and intuitive.
5) The Disappearing Spoon is your first book. How did
you approach the material differently from the science writing that you have
done for Slate, Mental Floss or Science?
The best part about it was being able to set things up in one chapter
and then deliver the goods later. You just don't have the room to do
that in a magazine piece. It was also somewhat different in that I'm
often writing about cutting-edge science for those publications,
whereas most of the science in the book has been established for
decades. But that gave me more chances to dwell on the characters and
personalities involved, and I found I loved diving into that stuff. It
really enriches the book, and I think people can learn more science
than they'd expect anyway just by reading narrative stories. That's
just how the human mind remembers information, in story form.
6) Judging by the number of stories throughout
The
Disappearing Spoon, it seems like you could write another book subtitled,
"Female Scientists Who Have Been Shortchanged by the Scientific
Establishment" (Marie Curie, Rosalind Franklin, Lise Meitner, to name a
few). Was that a subject that you initially intended to discuss, or did
it just come up a lot in your research?
No, it was not something I'd planned to write about explicitly, but,
sadly, the theme kept popping up, and I couldn't avoid it. I doubt if
there's anything unique about the periodic table in this regard,
either. So I'm glad I was able to highlight some of the injustice, and
I think people are more aware nowadays of some of the historical
wrongs. Doesn't make up for them, but there's hope we can wiser in the
future.
7) After exploring the tumultuous history of the periodic
table, do you have any insights about the likely role of any particular
elements in the future?
Well, we'll definitely keep adding new elements to the table -- two
more actually just got added to the table in early June, numbers 114
and 116. People always want to know if these heavy elements, which
fall apart in less than a second in most cases, have any real use. And
the short answer is no. But making ultraheavy elements can help
scientists refine their theories and equipment, which can have
trickle-down effects. And just as important, I think it satisfies
something about human nature to keep exploring and keep pushing past
the boundaries nature sets. So these elements are important beyond the
narrow sense of having use in industry or something.
8) Which element do you think you are most like and why?
Or, do you have a favorite element?
Mercury is definitely my favorite. I have fun memories of it from
childhood (as do many people, I've discovered!) and it's such a
gorgeous element as well, a shiny liquid metal. Throw in its long
history in classical times and mythology, in alchemy, in early
science, and it's got as rich a past as any element on the table. I
don't know if I'm mercurial, necessarily: I'm pretty even-tempered.
But if someone told me I reminded them of mercury for whatever reason,
I wouldn't be offended.
9) Do you have plans to write another book?
Yes, indeed. It's about genetics, and it has a similar feel to this
book: fun, strange, and unusual stories buried in the human genome.
I'm especially interested in stories from our remote past that we
thought were lost forever, but that scientists have been able to root
out in the past few years as they'd deciphered our genetic code. It's
called The Violinist's Thumb.
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