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Your Atomic Self: The Invisible Elements That Connect You to Everything Else in the Universe
What do atoms have to do with your life? In Your Atomic Self , scientist Curt Stager reveals how they connect you to some of the most amazing things in the universe.
You will follow your oxygen atoms through fire and water and from forests to your fingernails. Hydrogen atoms will wriggle into your hair and betray where you live and what you have been drinking. The carbon in your breath will become tree trunks, and the sodium in your tears will link you to long-dead oceans. The nitrogen in your muscles will help to turn the sky blue, the phosphorus in your bones will help to turn the coastal waters of North Carolina green, the calcium in your teeth will crush your food between atoms that were mined by mushrooms, and the iron in your blood will kill microbes as it once killed a star.
You will also discover that much of what death must inevitably do to your body is already happening among many of your atoms at this very moment and that, nonetheless, you and everyone else you know will always exist somewhere in the fabric of the universe.
You are not only made of atoms; you are atoms, and this book, in essence, is an atomic field guide to yourself.
You will follow your oxygen atoms through fire and water and from forests to your fingernails. Hydrogen atoms will wriggle into your hair and betray where you live and what you have been drinking. The carbon in your breath will become tree trunks, and the sodium in your tears will link you to long-dead oceans. The nitrogen in your muscles will help to turn the sky blue, the phosphorus in your bones will help to turn the coastal waters of North Carolina green, the calcium in your teeth will crush your food between atoms that were mined by mushrooms, and the iron in your blood will kill microbes as it once killed a star.
You will also discover that much of what death must inevitably do to your body is already happening among many of your atoms at this very moment and that, nonetheless, you and everyone else you know will always exist somewhere in the fabric of the universe.
You are not only made of atoms; you are atoms, and this book, in essence, is an atomic field guide to yourself.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published October 14, 2014
100 people are currently reading
837 people want to read
About the author
Curt Stager
8 books18 followersCURT STAGER is a climate scientist, educator, and science journalist whose research over the last three decades has dealt with the climatic and ecological histories of the Adirondacks, Peru, and much of Africa. He has published numerous research articles in major journals including Science and Quaternary Research, was an expert reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and has written extensively in periodicals such as National Geographic, Fast Company, and Adirondack Life. Since 1989, Curt has co-hosted Natural Selections, a weekly science program on North Country Public Radio. He is the author of "Deep Future: The Next 100,000 Years of Life on Earth," (Thomas Dunne Books, 2011), and his latest book, "Your Atomic Self: The Invisible Elements That Connect You to Everything Else in the Universe" will be published by Thomas Dunne Books in Fall, 2014. He has taught natural sciences at Paul Smith's College in upstate New York since 1987, and is also as an adjunct research faculty member at the University of Maine's Climate Change Institute. In 2013, the Carnegie Foundation selected him as the New York State Teacher of the Year. In his spare time, he enjoys playing guitar and banjo.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
August 12, 2021
Your Atomic Self achieves what it sets out to do – make you feel one with the universe, a tiny stop on an endless (technically not endless) journey of atoms through the cosmos.
It is well organised and informative with occasional repetitive bits of purple prose where the author waxes poetic about the universe. But damn, it’s hard not to wax poetic about the universe when the universe is just so amazing. It’s the kind of book that offers wonder and a spiritual experience for atheists. It was just the right level of science for me – I learnt new things but never felt out of my depth.
I looked at myself and was amazed. I was nowhere near as solid and continuous as I thought myself to be. I am made of stars, I am an incessant activity of atoms, entering and leaving me, creating and breaking various bonds. (But then, you know, so is garbage, before I start feeling too precious).
It is well organised and informative with occasional repetitive bits of purple prose where the author waxes poetic about the universe. But damn, it’s hard not to wax poetic about the universe when the universe is just so amazing. It’s the kind of book that offers wonder and a spiritual experience for atheists. It was just the right level of science for me – I learnt new things but never felt out of my depth.
I looked at myself and was amazed. I was nowhere near as solid and continuous as I thought myself to be. I am made of stars, I am an incessant activity of atoms, entering and leaving me, creating and breaking various bonds. (But then, you know, so is garbage, before I start feeling too precious).
April 18, 2020
From a talk by Aaron Freeman, a portion of which was quoted in this book, and which was new to me:
“ You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy is created in the universe and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, ever vibration, every BTU of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid the energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got.
And at one point, you’d hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off you like children, their ways forever changed by you. And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever.
And the physicist will remind the congregation of how much of all our energy is given off as heat. There may be a few fanning themselves with their programs as he says it. And he will tell them that the warmth that flowed through you in life is still here, still part of all that we are, even as we who mourn continue in the heat of our own lives.
And you’ll want the physicist to explain to those who loved you that they need not have faith; indeed, they should not have faith. Let them know that they can measure, that scientists have measured precisely the conservation of energy and found it accurate, verifiable and consistent across space and time. You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they’ll be comforted to know your energy is still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone. You’re just less orderly. Amen.”
“ You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy is created in the universe and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, ever vibration, every BTU of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid the energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got.
And at one point, you’d hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off you like children, their ways forever changed by you. And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever.
And the physicist will remind the congregation of how much of all our energy is given off as heat. There may be a few fanning themselves with their programs as he says it. And he will tell them that the warmth that flowed through you in life is still here, still part of all that we are, even as we who mourn continue in the heat of our own lives.
And you’ll want the physicist to explain to those who loved you that they need not have faith; indeed, they should not have faith. Let them know that they can measure, that scientists have measured precisely the conservation of energy and found it accurate, verifiable and consistent across space and time. You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they’ll be comforted to know your energy is still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone. You’re just less orderly. Amen.”
June 17, 2018
I was exactly the Carl Sagan loving hippie atheist that this book was conceived/designed/written for. I knew I had to have it nearly the second I heard it existed. (First I had to check its bona fides to make sure that it wasn't a tome of woo. It wasn't.)
But early in the book I struggled to love it as much as I wanted to love it. Was Stager just not yet hitting his stride in balancing his scientific and poetic language? Were my expectations just unreasonable? Was it my common struggle of wanting to understand the issues at a deeper level than the book was written for? Specifically, a lot of the element tracking in this book is down by isotope analysis, yet not all the explanations of why that particular isotope of that element is preferentially absorbed/retained/concentrated were as successful as I would have liked.
Let me back up here. Stager organizes the book element by element -- carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, iron, etc. -- and devotes a chapter to each. So, carbon: where did the carbon in your body come from? How long does it stay there? How does it change (in what molecules is it involved)? How does it leave your body? And so on.
But I fell totally in love during a discussion of the rhizomatic bartering system -- the way that plants share and "buy" nutrients from their fungal neighbors in the soil. Magical and fascinating! I found myself spilling over and trying to explain it all to random people at work.
Once I was hooked, I stayed hooked, and ended up extremely pleased with the book overall. I brought the book to work to keep as a reference and am avidly hoping for some good excuse to look up isotopic accumulation and re-read the sections of the book that I struggled with the first time.
Clearly I need to pitch a "we are all stardust" camp, right?
There were those moments of "science mysticism" that I was longing for -- the "who am I, when I am constantly shedding atoms, molecules, sharing them with my neighbor, the potted plant on the other side of the room..." and also the "breathing the same air as Einstein, Aristotle, Hitler," and the "I remain." moments. Definitely worth a read. And even a re-read.
But early in the book I struggled to love it as much as I wanted to love it. Was Stager just not yet hitting his stride in balancing his scientific and poetic language? Were my expectations just unreasonable? Was it my common struggle of wanting to understand the issues at a deeper level than the book was written for? Specifically, a lot of the element tracking in this book is down by isotope analysis, yet not all the explanations of why that particular isotope of that element is preferentially absorbed/retained/concentrated were as successful as I would have liked.
Let me back up here. Stager organizes the book element by element -- carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, iron, etc. -- and devotes a chapter to each. So, carbon: where did the carbon in your body come from? How long does it stay there? How does it change (in what molecules is it involved)? How does it leave your body? And so on.
But I fell totally in love during a discussion of the rhizomatic bartering system -- the way that plants share and "buy" nutrients from their fungal neighbors in the soil. Magical and fascinating! I found myself spilling over and trying to explain it all to random people at work.
Once I was hooked, I stayed hooked, and ended up extremely pleased with the book overall. I brought the book to work to keep as a reference and am avidly hoping for some good excuse to look up isotopic accumulation and re-read the sections of the book that I struggled with the first time.
Clearly I need to pitch a "we are all stardust" camp, right?
There were those moments of "science mysticism" that I was longing for -- the "who am I, when I am constantly shedding atoms, molecules, sharing them with my neighbor, the potted plant on the other side of the room..." and also the "breathing the same air as Einstein, Aristotle, Hitler," and the "I remain." moments. Definitely worth a read. And even a re-read.
May 7, 2015
Curt Stager is the rarest of scientific writers, he can both write and present good science. The book, while detailed is eminently readable and logical. It takes the reader from atoms to outpace and, by definition from outspace back to atoms. The book answers many fundamental questions about the life of our planet and the lack of life that exists within our own bodies. At the book's end some nearly spiritual reflections penetrate the reader and pose additional questions about the familiarity of our won existence. Are we actually living or merely a collection of non living entities that we have conveniently refered to as atoms? Ponderable, but unanswered by this publication, just the sort of thought experiment that I so richly enjoy. Please read the book and think, think about who and what you are.
November 16, 2014
This book is fantastic. I couldn't put it down! For me this book is right up there with Your Inner Fish. Your Atomic Self explains the beginnings of each element, and how they end up in our bodies, what happens when they get there, and how we benefit from them.
This is not a difficult physics or chemistry book, but instead the author explains well, for instance, how carbon and oxygen end up in our bodies from car emissions, the foods we eat, and what we drink.
There are hundreds of interesting tidbits such as the fact that our eyes take oxygen right out of the air. If they didn't, our eyes wouldn't get enough oxygen from our blood for them to function well.
The flow of the book is superb, with elements that moves into all their various uses, and how our atoms make up what we are and how frequently they are replaced.
Your Atomic Self is an enjoyable book and loaded with a lot of amazing science in astronomy, geology, biology, and chemistry. I highly recommend this book!
This is not a difficult physics or chemistry book, but instead the author explains well, for instance, how carbon and oxygen end up in our bodies from car emissions, the foods we eat, and what we drink.
There are hundreds of interesting tidbits such as the fact that our eyes take oxygen right out of the air. If they didn't, our eyes wouldn't get enough oxygen from our blood for them to function well.
The flow of the book is superb, with elements that moves into all their various uses, and how our atoms make up what we are and how frequently they are replaced.
Your Atomic Self is an enjoyable book and loaded with a lot of amazing science in astronomy, geology, biology, and chemistry. I highly recommend this book!
May 3, 2020
Some fascinating tidbits but on the whole quite repetitive in both the information and the writing style. The usage of the second person felt condescending at times.
November 20, 2014
A little drier than I was expecting from the excerpts I read, but overall this is a fascinating read with some truly poetic moments.
July 1, 2023
For this book, every minute spent reading it is worthwhile. The author has an admirable writing style that is an art of creative narrative that inspires appreciation and induces knowledge on science behind your environment, what we are made of and the life we live. If only most (better yet, all) university professors would be as eloquent as this author!
In a sense, this book reads like this one Periodic Tales: The Curious Lives of the Elements but it focuses on a smaller set of elements: H, O, N, C, P, K and discusses how they play huge parts in our environment and our being. I learned several interesting bits of elemental knowledge from atomic and astrophysics to biophysics to biochemistry of things that sustain, embrace, and influence our being. It gives me crucial recognition of what is the essence of our life and environment. For example, water derived from waste sewage is still the all-essential thing that sustains our life. The yuck factor comes from our lack of appreciable knowledge that this book (or any good science book) imparts to us who care to have accurate view of the world.
This book is a good example of a saying that Reading good books can be detrimental to your ignorance.
In a sense, this book reads like this one Periodic Tales: The Curious Lives of the Elements but it focuses on a smaller set of elements: H, O, N, C, P, K and discusses how they play huge parts in our environment and our being. I learned several interesting bits of elemental knowledge from atomic and astrophysics to biophysics to biochemistry of things that sustain, embrace, and influence our being. It gives me crucial recognition of what is the essence of our life and environment. For example, water derived from waste sewage is still the all-essential thing that sustains our life. The yuck factor comes from our lack of appreciable knowledge that this book (or any good science book) imparts to us who care to have accurate view of the world.
This book is a good example of a saying that Reading good books can be detrimental to your ignorance.
February 25, 2025
gained a new perspective about atoms
An easy and enjoyable read for a novice without technical terminology. I gained a deeper perspective about how atoms and molecules interact with the environment
An easy and enjoyable read for a novice without technical terminology. I gained a deeper perspective about how atoms and molecules interact with the environment
June 27, 2025
It’s an intriguing and thought-provoking read. Although I didn’t place the same emphasis or value on some of his points, people, or stories, I still found valuable insights and appreciated his perspective.
August 31, 2017
An amazing book, everything looks a little different after reading it. The whole book is mind-blowing but the last two chapters are in a class by themselves.
March 19, 2018
not interest
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 26, 2018
Very fun to read. Connects your being to the fabric of the cosmos. Up to date information as well as great storytelling. I recommend this book to anyone.
April 26, 2019
Fascinating!
January 1, 2022
read this for chemistry honors for the atoms unit and it was boring. not a non fiction science reader but the author connected things well
March 4, 2016
Written at a level that the scientifically unprepared like myself can understand. I worried at first that the book might turn into a diatribe on climate change and radical environmentalism but actually found it to be very balanced. I appreciated how the question of "what is life?" was addressed from our senses, to our emotions, to our spiritual yearnings. Not particularly "faith" building, however it didn't disdain belief. The thought experiments were engaging. I liked the way that the atomic world was related to our common everyday experience. I found it fascinating, awe inspiring, wonderful how we are connected to each other, the planet, the solar system, even the universe through atoms.
May 6, 2017
Good book, takes a little while to get going, really does present for popular readership fascinating degrees and mechanisms of essential physical bonds we share with the cosmos. At times there's a sort of 'spiritual materialism' hinted at that isnt at all compelling, and can be distractingly clumsy. "One with the universe" speak, in physical terms he does very well and it successfully speaks for itself such that it doesnt need the weak *meta*physical incursions be understood. I did have to wonder how sincere they were. Otherwise, it can sound like moments of "New Atheist" proselytizing (and in answer, Edward Feser).
April 28, 2015
Like Hugh Aldersey-Williams' _Periodic Tales_ (one of my favorite popular science books), Stager's book explores the cycles of the elements, only with a sharper focus on those that play a crucial role in biological life: hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, iron, calcium and so on. Although his prose gets a bit too flowery at times, there was a definite Saganesque spirit to his musings on how nature connects the stuff of our selves to the ecosystem of the planet and the cosmos as a whole.
June 2, 2016
Much in this book is over my pay grade, but I found the rest of it fascinating. Whether we scientifically or mythologically attempt to qualify and quantify our life as we see it, it is pause for thought. We may understand the properties of our bodies and our surroundings; but after that - - -
I did find Stager's account of carbon dating fascinating and find it acceptable that our bodies are made up of the same components of rocks and soil so why not stars!
I did find Stager's account of carbon dating fascinating and find it acceptable that our bodies are made up of the same components of rocks and soil so why not stars!
April 22, 2016
A fascinating discussion of the atomic nature and scale of identity and being. This books takes the reader on a metaphysical journey on the nature of existence.
I won this book through the GoodReads Giveaways.
I won this book through the GoodReads Giveaways.
March 7, 2015
It is a well-written and lovely book. It broadly covers, as it claims, the atoms that make us up. But I'm finding that lately I crave a bit more depth and understanding of one subject, say, just one atom. So, while the facts were interesting, they felt a bit trivial.
January 15, 2015
Maybe the best part was the suggestion (made by someone else) to have a physicist speak at one's funeral. I stick by my previous comment regarding the improper use of comparisons in which something is 1000 times smaller than something else.
October 21, 2021
Excellent
Easy to read, packed with scientific info - but not dry-, gives you another perspective of life, interactions and death, as seen from the most elemental point of view, the atomic.
Easy to read, packed with scientific info - but not dry-, gives you another perspective of life, interactions and death, as seen from the most elemental point of view, the atomic.
April 29, 2016
Fantastic book! Very interesting, especially if you like science.
March 9, 2015
This book was mostly earth science/ecology. I was expecting more about the chemistry of the human body.
February 7, 2015
Excellent. Challenging, informative. Science with a touch of poetic. Another dimension of self and being, explored from the atomic realm.
April 21, 2015
Great, interesting science book for a novice like me!
October 28, 2015
The fun journey of the atoms that comprise you, the earth, and the heavens. We are more connected than it appears.
February 6, 2020
Fantastic book. Spiritual, stunning language, explaining in astounding detail the atomic and molecular mysteries and beauty of our bodies.
March 18, 2025
Great every reread, will reread again one day
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews