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9780199652723

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Everything is here: from making phosphorus out of faeces all the way to superheavy elements, illuminated by a delightful combination of chemical insight and historical knowledge. * Martyn Poliakoff * This erudite yet accessible and entertaining account describes the challenges, confusions, illuminations, and jealousies involved in the naming of the underlying fabric of the everyday world. Anyone who enjoys the practice of science will be enriched by what they will read here. * Peter Atkins, University of Oxford * Thorough and well-researched exploration of how the elements were named ... Readers even casually interested in the history of chemistry would do well to pick up this energetic survey. * Publishers Weekly * [An] erudite, complex, but always enjoyably unbuttoned account of how the elements acquired their names. A charming way to convey the history of this science. * New Scientist * Such a book could only have been written by an academic deeply learned and passionate about chemistry ... it is also the kind of book whose title might pique someone's interest in a bookshop and inspire a lifelong passion for chemistry and its history ... it seems worth celebrating that some academics are still producing books so curious, wide-ranging and enthusiastic. * Matthew Reisz, The Times Higher Education Supplement *

Everything is here: from making phosphorus out of faeces all the way to superheavy elements, illuminated by a delightful combination of chemical insight and historical knowledge. * Martyn Poliakoff * This erudite yet accessible and entertaining account describes the challenges, confusions, illuminations, and jealousies involved in the naming of the underlying fabric of the everyday world. Anyone who enjoys the practice of science will be enriched by what they will read here. * Peter Atkins, University of Oxford *

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Dr Peter Wothers is a Teaching Fellow in the Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge, and a Fellow and Director of Studies in Chemistry at St Catharine's College. He is heavily involved in promoting chemistry to young students and members of the public, and, in 2010, created the popular Cambridge Chemistry Challenge competition for students in the UK. Peter is known nationally and internationally for his demonstration lectures and presented the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, titled The Modern Alchemist, in 2012. He has also authored a number of popular textbooks, including Why Chemical Reactions Happen and Chemical Structure and Reactivity, with colleague James Keeler. In 2014, he was awarded an M.B.E. for Services to Chemistry in the Queen's Birthday Honours.

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