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The Periodic Table: A visual guide to the elements
Which is the densest element? Which has the largest atoms? And why are some elements radioactive? From the little-known uses of gold in medicine to the development of the hydrogen bomb, this is a fresh new look at the Periodic Table.
Combining cutting edge science with fascinating facts and stunning infographics, this book looks at the extraordinary stories of discovery, amazing properties and surprising uses of each elements, whether solid, liquid or gas - naturally occurring, synthesised or theoretical!
From hydrogen to oganesson, this is a fact-filled visual guide to each element,each accompanied by technical date (category, atomic number, weight, boiling point) as well as fun facts and stories about their discovery and surprising uses.
Combining cutting edge science with fascinating facts and stunning infographics, this book looks at the extraordinary stories of discovery, amazing properties and surprising uses of each elements, whether solid, liquid or gas - naturally occurring, synthesised or theoretical!
From hydrogen to oganesson, this is a fact-filled visual guide to each element,each accompanied by technical date (category, atomic number, weight, boiling point) as well as fun facts and stories about their discovery and surprising uses.
224 pages, Hardcover
Published September 28, 2017
13 people are currently reading
682 people want to read
About the author
Tom Jackson
647 books58 followers"I'm a non-fiction author and project editor (plus I do a bit of journalism). I'm available for project development, writing, project management and I also work as a packager. Click on the links above to see examples of my work.
But first some background: Over the last 20 years, I've written books, magazine and newspaper articles, for online and for television. I get to write about a wide range of subjects, everything from axolotls to zoroastrianism. However, my specialties are natural history, technology and all things scientific. I've worked on projects with Brian May, Patrick Moore, Marcus de Sautoy and Carol Vorderman and for major international publishers, such as Dorling Kindersley, National Geographic, Scholastic, Hachette, Facts on File and BBC Magazines.
I spend my days finding fun ways of communicating all kinds of facts, new and old, to every age group and reading ability. I live in Bristol, England, with my wife and three children. I studied zoology at Bristol University and have had spells working at the zoos in Jersey and Surrey. I used to be something of a conservationist, which included planting trees in Somerset, surveying Vietnamese jungle and rescuing buffaloes from drought-ridden Zimbabwe. Writing jobs have also taken me to the Galápagos Islands, the Amazon rainforest, the coral reefs of Indonesia and the Sahara Desert. Nowadays, I can be found mainly in the attic."
~http://tomjackson.weebly.com/
But first some background: Over the last 20 years, I've written books, magazine and newspaper articles, for online and for television. I get to write about a wide range of subjects, everything from axolotls to zoroastrianism. However, my specialties are natural history, technology and all things scientific. I've worked on projects with Brian May, Patrick Moore, Marcus de Sautoy and Carol Vorderman and for major international publishers, such as Dorling Kindersley, National Geographic, Scholastic, Hachette, Facts on File and BBC Magazines.
I spend my days finding fun ways of communicating all kinds of facts, new and old, to every age group and reading ability. I live in Bristol, England, with my wife and three children. I studied zoology at Bristol University and have had spells working at the zoos in Jersey and Surrey. I used to be something of a conservationist, which included planting trees in Somerset, surveying Vietnamese jungle and rescuing buffaloes from drought-ridden Zimbabwe. Writing jobs have also taken me to the Galápagos Islands, the Amazon rainforest, the coral reefs of Indonesia and the Sahara Desert. Nowadays, I can be found mainly in the attic."
~http://tomjackson.weebly.com/
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
April 20, 2022
Four and a half stars.
From my time as a student I was left with the thorn of not having learned the chemistry subject well. This book has served very well to clarify concepts and learn issues that I did not know. The only complain is that being a visual introduction, it must necessarily deal with many issues superficially, but other more specific reference books already exist for this.
From my time as a student I was left with the thorn of not having learned the chemistry subject well. This book has served very well to clarify concepts and learn issues that I did not know. The only complain is that being a visual introduction, it must necessarily deal with many issues superficially, but other more specific reference books already exist for this.
December 14, 2017
This book instantly caught my attention when I saw it - bright colors, learning, and info graphics, oh my! Still hard for me to read, because of how dry chemistry is no matter how you spin it, and also because all chemistry info was dumped from my brain after high school. I do feel like I learned, though I don't know how much I actually retained. I approve of the pictures, colors, graphs, and all the visual elements used in this book - it helped me get through it. A good read if you want to learn about the periodic table and you're a visual learner!
My favorite thing I learned about is the element rubidium - in an experiment rubidium atoms were cooled either to absolute zero or close to it and the atoms "gave up their individual identities" and merged into a super atom. Um, that's incredibly cool. Prompted me to Google "Bose-Einstein condensate." I want to learn more about that - at a certain point (or rather, temperature), do all things merge into one? Definitely inspires me for future learning.
My favorite thing I learned about is the element rubidium - in an experiment rubidium atoms were cooled either to absolute zero or close to it and the atoms "gave up their individual identities" and merged into a super atom. Um, that's incredibly cool. Prompted me to Google "Bose-Einstein condensate." I want to learn more about that - at a certain point (or rather, temperature), do all things merge into one? Definitely inspires me for future learning.
January 11, 2024
It's a quite new book covering all the known elements today (this reminded me of my student days when the periodic table was not quite complete or known elements unnamed). It's a really good summary of the theories behind the table and a lot of very interesting info.
Also I highly recommend "Superheavy: Making and Breaking the Periodic Table" which covers the history of the man-made elements.
Also I highly recommend "Superheavy: Making and Breaking the Periodic Table" which covers the history of the man-made elements.
December 8, 2021
A great books with lots of information.
It has all sorts of characters, abrasive, explosive, lighter than air, caustic, nuclear, heavy, light, malleable and unbendable.
Lots of interesting facts makes for an entertaining read. Caution there is real science contained within this book.
Recommended
It has all sorts of characters, abrasive, explosive, lighter than air, caustic, nuclear, heavy, light, malleable and unbendable.
Lots of interesting facts makes for an entertaining read. Caution there is real science contained within this book.
Recommended
January 17, 2018
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book through a Goodreads giveaway to facilitate writing this review. No other compensation was requested or offered.
The periodic table was developed in 1869 by Dmitri Mendeleev as a way of categorizing elements, substances that cannot be refined or purified into simpler ingredients. When it was shown that the table was able to predict the properties of elements not previously discovered, the chart was accepted by scientists, and remains a useful tool for chemists and and science students. This book looks at how the periodic table works, and what the elements are.
This book is stuffed full of colorful infographics and solid facts. After an explanation of how the periodic table works and the properties of each “group,” there’s a section that explains how atoms work and basic elemental chemistry and physics. There’s also a “directory” giving a page or two to each individual element–up to Fermium, as the trans-Fermian elements have barely existed on Earth so there’s little to say about them. The science is up to date as of 2017.
With many helpful illustrations and its sturdy cover, this book is clearly designed for high school libraries. There’s a glossary and index, but the acknowledgements (mostly photo credits) are crammed into tiny type on one page.
This was originally published in Britain, so does have British spellings, most obviously “aluminium.” The book touches briefly on anthropogenic climate change, and frequently on the age of the universe, which some parents might find controversial.
While the primary audience is libraries, this would also make a cool gift for science-loving teens, and a useful reference work for writers who are, say, writing Metamorpho the Element Man for DC Comics or other element-related fiction. If you have some spare cash, check with your local school library to see if they need this book.
The periodic table was developed in 1869 by Dmitri Mendeleev as a way of categorizing elements, substances that cannot be refined or purified into simpler ingredients. When it was shown that the table was able to predict the properties of elements not previously discovered, the chart was accepted by scientists, and remains a useful tool for chemists and and science students. This book looks at how the periodic table works, and what the elements are.
This book is stuffed full of colorful infographics and solid facts. After an explanation of how the periodic table works and the properties of each “group,” there’s a section that explains how atoms work and basic elemental chemistry and physics. There’s also a “directory” giving a page or two to each individual element–up to Fermium, as the trans-Fermian elements have barely existed on Earth so there’s little to say about them. The science is up to date as of 2017.
With many helpful illustrations and its sturdy cover, this book is clearly designed for high school libraries. There’s a glossary and index, but the acknowledgements (mostly photo credits) are crammed into tiny type on one page.
This was originally published in Britain, so does have British spellings, most obviously “aluminium.” The book touches briefly on anthropogenic climate change, and frequently on the age of the universe, which some parents might find controversial.
While the primary audience is libraries, this would also make a cool gift for science-loving teens, and a useful reference work for writers who are, say, writing Metamorpho the Element Man for DC Comics or other element-related fiction. If you have some spare cash, check with your local school library to see if they need this book.
May 17, 2020
In a way I was conned into buying this book. It looked so jam-packed with information and is one of those graphic books that presents complex information in a novel and illuminating way. And the Periodic Table, for me, is certainly the key...or a main key anyway, to chemistry. Yes, I studied a lot of chemistry at university and I recall using a mnemonic story (devised during one train trip home in about 40 min) to memorise the periodic table up until about element 80 or so. (Certainly far more than was ever required) for my first year Chemistry exam. (The mantra was "Fifty percent must fail" and it was widely believed that the markers simply drew the line at 50% ...though they swore that if you got the answers right then you would pass. I think learning the periodic table helped because it also helped put elements in sequence by activity, size etc,. Anyway, I passed Chemistry). But promptly forgot all the elements past about number 20 (which has stayed with me all my life).
And I've always wanted something like this book which would put things into perspective for me. And, in many ways it does just this. I liked the sections on the sizes of atoms....and no they don't just get bigger as the atomic number rises; Density.....the densest atoms lie kind-of in the middle of the standard table (Iridium and Osmium).
I guess that it is too much to expect a book of this nature to be really great in terms of explaining chemical bonding and atomic orbitals. It does a reasonable job but only reasonable. Where I was impressed was how it explained the relative size of ions when they gained or lost an outer orbital. I had never appreciated this before. And the chart on P160 has always intrigued me since I first saw it on the wall of the NZ Scientific Research organisation. It made me appreciate just how much of chemistry was variable....so that one could have an atom of Calcium with 20 protons in the nucleus but anywhere between around 15-35 neutrons in the nucleus ...most of them with a half life of less than 1 second but some lasting up to around 10,000 years. (And every element had this sort of possibility with its nucleus). So the stable forms (the ones that we are used to) are just one of a set of possibilities. And the last truly stable element is lead. After that all of the nuclei are unstable.
There is the typical rather long section that describes each element in some detail ...from its uses to the way it might be produced etc. (Reminds me of the "museum" that the Chemistry school had at Uni which tried to give us samples of each element of the periodic table....I stared at it for hours but it never really "grabbed" me. I think it was rather difficult to grasp the connectedness between elements in, say, the same column when they had to be encased in a glass bottle or phial.
Generally, I think the book does what it sets out to do. I found it interesting reading and it's the sort of book that i will return to. Four stars from me.
And I've always wanted something like this book which would put things into perspective for me. And, in many ways it does just this. I liked the sections on the sizes of atoms....and no they don't just get bigger as the atomic number rises; Density.....the densest atoms lie kind-of in the middle of the standard table (Iridium and Osmium).
I guess that it is too much to expect a book of this nature to be really great in terms of explaining chemical bonding and atomic orbitals. It does a reasonable job but only reasonable. Where I was impressed was how it explained the relative size of ions when they gained or lost an outer orbital. I had never appreciated this before. And the chart on P160 has always intrigued me since I first saw it on the wall of the NZ Scientific Research organisation. It made me appreciate just how much of chemistry was variable....so that one could have an atom of Calcium with 20 protons in the nucleus but anywhere between around 15-35 neutrons in the nucleus ...most of them with a half life of less than 1 second but some lasting up to around 10,000 years. (And every element had this sort of possibility with its nucleus). So the stable forms (the ones that we are used to) are just one of a set of possibilities. And the last truly stable element is lead. After that all of the nuclei are unstable.
There is the typical rather long section that describes each element in some detail ...from its uses to the way it might be produced etc. (Reminds me of the "museum" that the Chemistry school had at Uni which tried to give us samples of each element of the periodic table....I stared at it for hours but it never really "grabbed" me. I think it was rather difficult to grasp the connectedness between elements in, say, the same column when they had to be encased in a glass bottle or phial.
Generally, I think the book does what it sets out to do. I found it interesting reading and it's the sort of book that i will return to. Four stars from me.
October 2, 2025
This was an interesting and informative “coffee table”/reference book that, despite its brevity, was still very informative on the topic of the periodic table. It covered the history of the periodic table, the significance of why groups and periods are structured the way they are, and even the physics of why elements act the way they do. Chemistry and physics are of course very closely linked, so it was nice to see some exploration of that link here. Accompanying the text, which is quite light, are many visual aides in the form of pictures, graphs, charts, and other items that express scale or time better for a casual reader. The only issue I might have with this volume is that it didn’t go deep enough into the particular use cases or histories of certain elements, but then again, that isn’t particularly what this book was meant to do. Detail is not this book’s goal. An easy to consume overview is.
A recommend from me to anyone who wants a quick reintroduction to chemistry. From here, I look forward to jumping into chemistry and chemical physics more!
A recommend from me to anyone who wants a quick reintroduction to chemistry. From here, I look forward to jumping into chemistry and chemical physics more!
July 11, 2023
Libro muy interesante, adictivo, fácil de leer y con mucha información para gente que no está familiarizada con la materia.
Si cuando estudiaba la tabla periódica, en mis tiempos de instituto o carrera, hubiera descubierto este libro, seguramente habría sido mucho más divertido.
Si cuando estudiaba la tabla periódica, en mis tiempos de instituto o carrera, hubiera descubierto este libro, seguramente habría sido mucho más divertido.
July 26, 2024
Great book for my students, an excellent gift from a teaching colleague.
Bright colors really helps with attention span on a topic as rough as chemistry. My students devoured this book for their periodic table projects!
Bright colors really helps with attention span on a topic as rough as chemistry. My students devoured this book for their periodic table projects!
May 3, 2025
Simple and colourful visuals to help illustrate abstract and complex ideas. Didn’t go very in depth and lacked many details but still a great introduction and overview of the elements with a wide range of topics for anyone wanting to get into chemistry.
July 31, 2020
This is really interesting, especially if like me you are a non scientist. It explains the elements and some aspects of chemistry in a clear and easy to understand way.
March 15, 2021
Basic but had what I needed for a quick overview
December 10, 2019
This year we are celebrating 150 years of the Periodic Table of Elements. Therefore, there would never be a better time to release a book on Periodic Table than this landmark year. And the author, the illustrator and the publisher need to be congratulated and appreciated for this gesture. The first impression of the book conveys beyond any doubt the amount of care and hard work that has gone into creating this book. Illustrations are made in bright colour and in different shades. These figures are assigned appropriate labels, captions and footnotes to understand the various aspects of the periodic table. At some of the points, especially where the writer explains the relation of group number and period number with the number of protons or number of shells, I felt that the traditional textbook method is much easier than the presented verbal explanation. The book claims to provide the reader a pictorial or graphical introduction to the Periodic Table, and yes, it does deliver what it promised.
January 21, 2018
Great overview of the elements simple and colourful.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews