Science writer Sam Kean spoke to students and professors Feb. 8, as the keynote speaker of the Southeastern Undergraduate Research Conference.
His talk revolved around his book The Disappearing Spoon, a novel about the periodic table that captures the history and stories behind many of the elements on it.
“I wanted to give them a bit of personality and make them as familiar to us as oxygen,” Kean said when discussing the purpose behind the book.
Kean started off with an anecdote about his favorite element on the periodic table: mercury. He told his audience about how the drops of mercury in a glass thermometer jumpstarted his passion for science.
In the introduction of The Disappearing Spoon, Kean wrote, “The more I learned about mercury, the more… its destructive beauty attracted me.”
He continued with his lecture by talking about aluminum. In the 1800s, aluminum was the most precious metal because it was hard to find in large amounts.
As a result, high nobility ate from their finest aluminum china, while the lesser nobles were left to eat from golden silverware.
At the end of his talk, he showed alternative periodic tables shaped like galaxies and other graphic shapes. He even showed one that he had found through a signing: someone took photos of themselves in a photo booth and arranged them into the shape of the periodic table.
“We make the periodic table our own in our own personal way”, Kean said while showing his audience the graphics he collected.
Kean is releasing a new book this summer about a group of scientists tasked with gathering intelligence on Nazi Germany’s atomic bomb titled The Bastard Brigade.
The Bastard Brigade is available for pre-order on Amazon.
