Molecules: The Elements and the Architecture of Everything, Book 2 of 3

+So in my review of The Elements, I stupidly suggested that the book was a great example of why e-books weren't going to replace physical books any time soon. Well we know how that turned out (the fully interactive Elements app on iOS is breathtaking and undoubtedly many times more popular than the book). I'm sure Touch Press is about to release Molecules as an iOS e-book app too [Update: they did], but I'm still really glad I got the physical book. "The Elements" and "Molecules" look very similar, but there are some subtle differences due to the difference in their subjects. The Elements was primarily a beautiful picture book and catalog of all the elements. But that made it somewhat more abstract since most of us rarely interact directly with more than a handful of elements, and their atomic nature is less a part of every day experience. The text was mostly interesting trivia for each element. Molecules on the other hand moves up a layer from atoms to molecular compounds, and as such it comes a step closer to our daily experience. The Elements was a book you mostly looked at, but Molecules is a book you'll want to READ since it's jam packed full of interesting and useful information about the chemistry of nature and human industry. It's still just as lavishly illustrated and beautifully produced as The Elements, but there's much more depth here because the author is not compelled to cover "all" of anything as was the case in the earlier book (where honestly there are a lot of pretty boring or obscure elements). Amazon's "Look Inside" feature lets you see what most of the book looks like if you want to see examples of the topics covered, but it does a good job of covering (in an interesting and visual way) both the chemistry of how atoms become molecules and then the properties of various molecular species, as well as numerous higher level applications and what sort of molecules we experience through our senses (color, scent, taste, etc.) as well as those with biological applications (painkillers for example). A great gift for a child or anyone about to begin their study of the sciences, especially chemistry. It's a book with a very high signal to noise ratio, one that will leave you feeling smarter after you read it. G.

I LOVE this book. It's was difficult to put down once I started reading it. What I loved the most was that the book leaned toward organic chemistry, which is my favorite chemistry topic. The illustrations were very clear; I especially liked how the author rendered molecules with a faint glow — not only does it underscore the reality about what electrons truly are, it also aesthetically looks very pleasing against the black background of the book's pages. The photography was crisp and the subjects were varied and well thought out. Despite having just completed 1200 pages of general chemistry, I still learned an important thing or two that I didn't know before. The topic of this book, molecules, is such a broad umbrella that 1000 people could write such a book and you'd have 1000 very different approaches, some good and others not so good. With such an expansive set of things the author could have touched on, I think he did a good job in selecting what to mention and what to leave out, while still being both educational and entertaining. In short, I'd say you can't be disappointed in this book (unless you just really hate chemistry and/or the physical sciences). (That being said, my only complaint, and it's a minor one at that, is Theodore's rather opinionated views on things. If a second edition ever comes out, I would recommend to the author and the publisher to remove the few places where he thrusts his personal opinions on the reader. Not everyone holds the same beliefs, and opinions don't really belong in a book dealing with science anyway.)

GREAT reference books. Everything you wanted to know about MOLECLES but were afraid to ask. REALLY!

Theo Gray makes elements and now molecules personal. Neotame is one molecule he photographed for the book, carefully placing just a few grams into a glass dish. Neotame is a safe sweetener that's 10,000 times as sweet as sugar. Despite being exceedingly careful, he still tasted a pleasant sweetness on the back of his tongue, just from the molecules in the air from opening the container. For hours afterward, his mustache tasted sweet. This suggests a great training exercise for college chemistry students -- measure out one gram of neotame, then put it back in the container. This is primarily a picture book, so he's got pictures of everything. Many types of animal pee can be bought, and he shows how they are packaged. A drawback to elements is that most are gray -- with molecules, most are white, but he varies that up by showing the end products, such as many types of rope. Turns out cats and parrots each favor one particular type of rope. I didn't realize how toxic wallpaper could be -- see his section on Paris green (copper acetoarsenite). It's a big book, gorgeously photographed. What sets it apart from a DK picture book is that he's got great stories interspersed with the interesting facts on every page. In the opening, he talks of historic reactions involving the oil of vitriol -- "but I still haven't told you what this stuff is yet". I didn't remember, but I continued to let him tell the story and show the pictures. Highly recommended.

This is a terrific book. I've never seen anything like it, except Gray's earlier book, Elements, also terrific. Great for anyone who has even a passing interest in chemistry or learning about what stuff is made of. Visually stunning, coverage of wide array of topics, jammed packed with examples each with a beautiful photograph and most with chemical diagrams. Amazingly the chemical diagrams are beautiful too, clear and consistent with color coded atoms and presented with an artist's touch. Just as good is Gray's text which is always interesting and insightful. You can pick up a lot of chemistry from Gray's text. This is a book you can open anywhere and start reading. A book that for a technical person is just plain fun. The only (minor) omission I noted was in describing glucose in the sugar section he didn't mention that glucose is biologically the king of sugars. The sugar in your blood that 'feeds' all the cells of the body is glucose.

I really like the plain language explanations of things, and generally the humor isn't bad (though it is clearly not meant to be a funny book - perhaps "puns" would be a better word). One thing - and the reason I took off a star. In most cases, the author clearly explains why things are good or bad. He talks about effects on health, both short- and long-term, and similarly on the environment. With one glaring exception. In the chapter on Carbon, called "Save the Planet!", he dives right into a major attack on carbon and why it is bad. No explanation is provided about what makes it bad, neither to the environment nor to personal health. After the chapter on CFCs, where he describes their positive and negative features and shows an image of the annual "ozone hole", I was looking forward to a similarly clear and concise explanation of why carbon is a problem. No joy - he explains the positive and negative features of this atom and CO2 not at all. Instead, he rants about how releasing it into the atmosphere must be stopped. Earlier in the book, he talks at some length about how carbon is a fundamental building block of so many simple and compound molecules and compounds. In this chapter, he does not even mention how it is such a fundamental part of life, including life, nor how it is part of the metabolic cycle of virtually all living things. Is excessive CO2 in the atmosphere a problem? I believe so, and would be much happier if there were a lot more plants around to consume it and produce more O. I'm just bummed that this otherwise fascinating and clear book forewent any explanations in this chapter, and opted instead for what I can only characterize as a very polite rant. Still a good book, and I recommend it, but note that there it contains at least one strongly argued ideological position that is not explained. Well, you should always think when you read, and not accept things blindly without evidence or at least explanation, so it probably won't trick many people into accepting it uncritically, but I still found it annoying and it definitely impacted my enjoyment of the book for a while. It makes me wonder what other such things he snuck past me! Did he omit any explanation of the positive and negative features of C and CO2 because he assumed he was writing to an audience who all shared his ideology? Not a recommended assumption if you want to sell in the mass market!

Great information.

got what i wanted