The Periodic Table: Its Story and Its Significance [Hardcover]

...valuable for students and teachers in sciences, as well as in the philosophy, and any other discipline that has some reference to chemistry. Ivan Jurani'c JSCS Every chemist educator should read this book..[...] By writing this book and describing his philosophy, Scerri has done us a significant service. He has prompted us to think and argue. We need not agree with every conclusion he draws, but his ideas will certainly set us thinking, which, of course, is what good science is all about. He has broadened our minds. Struc Chem 2008 Eric Scerri's first book is timely, fluently written, and full of interesting ideas. This book is essential reading for any school chemistry teacher and is recommended for college or university chemistry lecturers. Metascience (2008) 17:155-157 Every chemist should read this book. It will also prove valuable for those who teach chemistry. By writing this book Scerri has done us a significant service. Chemical Educator, Volume 12. No.6, 2007 Strangely, relatively few books have been devoted to it, [the Periodic Table] which makes Scerri's particularly welcome - all the more so since not only does he recount events leading up to its discovery, but also analyses its underlying meaning and implications. John Emsley, TLS This is undoubtedly a book that every practising chemist and chemistry educator should read because of its far-reaching implications for understanding the nature of the periodic law and the challenges it presents to contemporary portrayals of the Periodic Table. Kevin Berg, Newsletter of International History, Philosophy and Science Teaching Group ...the quality is not merely skin deep, there is a real scholarship inside...I would have been proud to have written this book rather than just contributing one image. Gordon Woods, Education in Chemistry, A book that is truly the definitive work in its field: The Periodic Table by Scerri. Foundations of Chemistry, Vol 9, 2007 It is an essential item on every chemist's bookshelf. Foundations of Chemistry, Vol 9, 2007 To a chemist, the periodic table is a tool and Leitmotif in the same way that word and letters are the trade of the literary world. Like most tools, constant use and exposure tends to make one blase about the inherent and intellectual beauty. In this book, Eric Scerri manages to walk the delicate balance between academic rigor and a gripping story in presenting the history and philosophy of the periodic table. This is a book that anyone with an interest in science in general and chemistry in particular should read. Ed Constable, Switzerland, Amazon UK, 14 January 2007 ...well written and represents a valuable new compilation of existing knowledge on the subject. Denis Rouvray, Chemistry World, 1 May 2007 Eric Scerri is something of a rara avis. Scerri's philosophical orientation enriches the text by raising a number of thought-provoking issues ... The book under review here is clearly and engagingly written and meticulously researched with 42 pages of notes. Journal of Chemical Education, 2007.

The book is written at a general level equivalent to
Scienctific American articles. I trace the history of modern chemistry and
modern physics through the persepctivce of the development of the periodic
system. The book takes a historical and philosophical approach to the
scientific issues and includes a discussion of the extent to which chemical
periodicity has been 'reduced' to fundamental physics, namely to quantum
mechanics. The audience for the book is very wide including chemists,
physicists, historians of science, philosophers of science, science
educators, geologists, astronomers and astophysicists and biologists. The
periodic table is one of the most potent icons in chemistry and indeed in
the whole of science. No other branch of science than chemistry possesses
anything remotely like it. One comprehensive chart that organizes a vast
body of knowledge and which is as relevant to this day as it was when it
was first discovered in the 1860s by a number of independently working
scientists. Mendeleev was by no means the only discoverer, although he is
the most significant of them because of what he did to establish the
validity of the periodic system.