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Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood
by
Oliver Sacks
Oliver Sacks's luminous memoir charts the growth of a mind. Born in 1933 into a family of formidably intelligent London Jews, he discovered the wonders of the physical sciences early from his parents and their flock of brilliant siblings, most notably "Uncle Tungsten" (real name, Dave), who "manufactured lightbulbs with filaments of fine tungsten wire."...more
Paperback, 352 pages
Published
September 17th 2002
by Random House, Inc.
(first published October 16th 2001)
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i do not understand science.
most phenomena i just dismiss with accusations of magic: the moon controls the tides?? but they are so far away!! oh, maaaagic!! leap year?? account for thyself!! magic?? got it. how did you make this pluot, sir?? ah, i see you are an alchemist!
much of it i have to blame on my high schooling because i have not studied any aspect of the sciences since then, but it's not like i have gone out of my way to do any research now that i am grown. i mean,...more
most phenomena i just dismiss with accusations of magic: the moon controls the tides?? but they are so far away!! oh, maaaagic!! leap year?? account for thyself!! magic?? got it. how did you make this pluot, sir?? ah, i see you are an alchemist!
much of it i have to blame on my high schooling because i have not studied any aspect of the sciences since then, but it's not like i have gone out of my way to do any research now that i am grown. i mean,...more
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This is the very personal memoir of Dr. Oliver Sacks, who is known as the author of numerous anecdotal stories involving case-studies of his patients' neurological disorders.
As a young boy he experienced a profound excitment over the study of chemistry, which helped him cope with his own neuroses which had their origins in the brutal treatment he and his brother Michael received at a boys' school that they attended during the early years of World War II.
This was a period ...more
As a young boy he experienced a profound excitment over the study of chemistry, which helped him cope with his own neuroses which had their origins in the brutal treatment he and his brother Michael received at a boys' school that they attended during the early years of World War II.
This was a period ...more
A very vivid and poignant account of Oliver Sacks childhood fascination and love for chemistry. He makes us all feel sad for the loss of that childlike curiosity and attachment to science. he found delight in exploring the physical world. How many of us has the abillity to do experiments on chemicals during our childhood days?How many of us dream of chemistry?How many of us delight in travelling the journey of science;asking questions and given answers to satisfy our eager curiosity? These are w...more
I went on a mini-Sacks "bender" this year, reading Uncle Tugsten, Musicophilia, and then dipping into one of his earlier books (An Anthropologist on Mars). What I have always loved about Sacks is his ability to present the scientific, social, personal and emotional aspects of his subject as a balanced entity. You can see, through his writings, how he develops a rapport with his patients.
Uncle Tungsten is a memoir of Sacks, growing up in Britain under the Blitz, a child of a rema...more
Uncle Tungsten is a memoir of Sacks, growing up in Britain under the Blitz, a child of a rema...more
As a kid I really liked my chemistry set - maybe that is why I grew up to teach high school chemistry. I'm also a really good cook. The stories in this book really spoke to me - the relationship of the author and his uncle and that science is really cool!
I really enjoyed this autobiography. Sacks is such an engaging writer. I got to go listen to him speak a few years ago at Mayo - he was just as delightful in person as in print.
Arthur Balfour once described Winston Churchill’s books as autobiographies “disguised as histories of the universe.” In "Uncle Tungsten," neurologist and best-selling medical author Oliver Sacks wrote an endearing and evocative memoir of his childhood, wonderfully narrated as a romantic history of chemistry and atomic theory. The gifted scion of a populous clan of almost incredible over-achievers (both parents were physicians and his mother had 17 siblings), Sacks came of age in an ext...more
This is an odd book--part autobiography, part history of chemistry. Sacks, a neurologist who writes beautifully about unusual people. In doing so he always reminds me not only of our common humanity, but of just how strange and wonderful our humanity is. In this book he is the subject of his narrative and he manages to depict himself with the same grace and wit that uses to characterize others. The heart of the book is his experience being evacuated Along with many other children from London dur...more
I enjoyed this considerably more than The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat, which partly just reflects my relative levels of interest in chemistry and neuroscience, but also reflects the way this book interleaves scientific and wartime memoir -- the Second World War being a topic which interests me more than either of the above, at least from a pleasure-reading point of view. (Plus, I learned a few more obnoxious chemistry trivia facts, the better to torment family and friends.)
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The author of all those wonderful books with case studies (for the layman) of strange human behaviors and the workings of the human mind has written a fascinating memoir of the early part of his life. His personal recollections of his memoir are every bit as interesting as those books.
He tells of his experiences growing up in London as a highly curious, intelligent little boy whose toys were the books and tools of science. His initial experiments were chemical in nature and not so...more
He tells of his experiences growing up in London as a highly curious, intelligent little boy whose toys were the books and tools of science. His initial experiments were chemical in nature and not so...more
i love oliver sacks' case studies and learning about neurology from his writing. this wasn't as fun for me, but it still was full of interesting and sometimes amazing information. this book is purely focused on chemistry, and people who have no interest in chemistry would not enjoy this at all. he also doesn't do much explaining, so people who have no foundation of chemical knowledge probably wouldn't follow it all that well either. this describes me around some of the topics he covers, but ...more
Åke
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review of another edition
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review of another edition
Recommends it for:
anyone who thought chemistry was boring
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After barely managing a passing grade in Chemistry (senior high school), I was convinced chemistry was an utterly boring subject that I wouldn't ever find any interest in...ever! However after reading this book I find that I was wrong, chemistry has a fascinating history and is in its own a fascinating subject.
This book is not only about chemistry, it's history and applications, but also about a boy growing up during the second world war.
This book is not only about chemistry, it's history and applications, but also about a boy growing up during the second world war.
I liked this book in spite of the fact that I am not too educated about chemistry and the elements - just the basic high school classes I took. There were lots of parts that I skimmed over - just too much detailed science for me. But I learned so many new things about the discovery of the elements and about so many scientists that laid the groundwork for what we know as the periodical table of elements. I also gained an appreciation for the order in the universe and marveled at the patterns f...more
A great read! Sacks conveys his boyhood passion for chemistry while at the same time explaining in simple terms many historically and scientifically significant breakthroughs and discoveries. The chapters are relatively short, and each generally focuses on one topic, alternating between domestic or boyhood memory chapters (such as memories of his childhood home, or memories of his mother), with chapters predominantly focused on explaining a specific discovery of science (such as the development ...more
Sarah
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review of another edition
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review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Anyone who loved chemistry in high school, but has never gone back since
This book is a great, unique memoir of Sacks' love of chemistry and science in general, with really accessible explanations of the chemistry that so fascinated him. If I could, I'd give this book a 3.5 - because just when I wanted more information about Sacks, his life, and his chemical inspirations, I would get more technical chemistry or chemistry history.
This is a memoir of a brilliant man's curious evolution as an inquiring mind. His family is super-brainy and it's no wonder that he is too, since they gave him his own chemistry-lab at age 10 to start blowing shit up. This book is also a superb primer for anyone interested in the history of chemistry, from alchemy to the most recent discoveries.
Sacks' boyhood allowed him to "experiment" with various metals and chemicals in ways that are no longer permissable for safety reasons. You really get a feel for his curosity and eagerness to learn how things work. He also seems to have had a great family (nuclear and extended) that encouraged that curosity and helped provide him with his supplies. He does talk about a very difficult time when he and one of his older brothers were sent to a special school during the bombing of Londo...more
Hm. I do believe some people would love this. I'd have loved more personal memoir - after all, Sacks is known for giving us every last detail of his patients' lives, inner and outer, so more of his own childhood would have been good. And more about his family. And, in the science parts, more about the actual science, enough clarity so I could actually understand. In my own personal opinion, Sacks did what has been proven popular for so many writers of historical science, that is, he shared ...more
I had a very strong personal reaction to this book (Sacks reminds me very much of my late father), so it's hard for me to judge whether it's a good book in any objective sense. It is not a standard memoir, in that you don't learn very much about Sacks' life or family outside of his explorations of chemistry. This can be frustrating. For instance, at one point he describes how as a teenager his brother Michael suffered from paranoid delusions (was he schizophrenic?), but then never goes on to say...more
tons of fun
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it's that most wonderful time of the year, when we read pop science and run loooooooong simulations and are full of good cheer!
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Impulse acquisition from Borders, 2008-04-08
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it's that most wonderful time of the year, when we read pop science and run loooooooong simulations and are full of good cheer!
-----
Impulse acquisition from Borders, 2008-04-08
This is a five-star jealousy rating. Oh, to have had the intellectual riches of Oliver Sacks' childhood. It's not possible anymore, even if you have equally intelligent, indulgent, slightly disconnected parents, who let him do what he wished, when he wished, how he wished--allowing him, over years, to play in an under-the-stairs chemistry lab, where he nearly blew himself and the house sky-high many times. Safety glasses? Fire protection? Concerns about poisonous fumes? Never mind! And how pale ...more
What did I think? Oliver Sacs is one of the smartest people ever. I knew he was a renowned neurologist but I did not realize that he came for a very unusual, bright, wealthy, prominent British Jewish family and at age 11 was reading primary sources in chemistry and conducting sophisticated chemical experiments at home, blowing things up occasionally. Basically this book is a charming story of a childhood genius through which the author tells the history of Chemistry. It is very readable just l...more
Unlike his other works, Uncle Tungsten focuses on Sacks himself--his boyhood in wartime England, his extended family of highly intelligent and eccentric characters, and his first great love: chemistry. Interwoven the years of his childhood he recapitulates the great discoveries and insights of the field of chemistry, recounting the history along with his own experimentation under the guidance of his "chemistry uncle," Dave, also known as Uncle Tungsten, who ran a tungsten-filament ligh...more
I read this book for a term project in school. For me this book was exciting, interesting, and at sometimes, boring. Sometimes, I would be drawn into it and want to read more, but at other times, I wanted to quit because it was boring. I learned a lot of new things about science(mostly elements and minerals)from this book. For example, it was interesting to know about colors of things, and what makes them that color. It was also interesting to find out about the composition of elements and ...more
I envy Sacks his intimate understanding of the natural sciences and wish I could relate better. My own education in science was spotty at best, and I never experienced it in a fun and playful way. I think I would have enjoyed this book even more had that not been the case. Thus, my 3 stars rating does not reflect any shortcoming on Sacks' part. As it is, I found myself interested more by the parts in which he describes his experiences and relationships with people, and in which he offers glimpse...more
This book was great because you can really sense the boyhood excitement, and you pick up a lot of little chemistry trivia (which I, as a chemist, especially appreciate). I don't think it's too technical, however, and I hope its chemistry content does not deter non-chemists of any type from reading it.
While reading, I was frequently reminded that the world has changed significantly in the past ~60 years. Oliver Sacks grew up in a time where you could essentially run down to the store...more
While reading, I was frequently reminded that the world has changed significantly in the past ~60 years. Oliver Sacks grew up in a time where you could essentially run down to the store...more
Wow. This book reminds me so much of Sophies World! While being a personal autobiography, Oliver Sacks weaves a broad history of modern science into it. His childhood interests meant he could have been a chemist or a physicist or even biologist in fact anything. His exposure and personal experiments left me wondering how he ended up a neurologist.
His childhood was exactly in the same part of North Londonand so was very familiar.Fortunately I studied chemistry, physics, and biology a...more
His childhood was exactly in the same part of North Londonand so was very familiar.Fortunately I studied chemistry, physics, and biology a...more
I learned so much about chemistry from this book! The childhood autobiography of the famed neurologist, Oliver Sacks, he grew up in a family of scientists right as much of our current scientific knowledge was being developed. The fact that he had access to incredible laboratory space and play-things a chemistry PhD student would be jealous of, helped ground much of the theory in a reality. He describes colors, textures, and behaviors instead of numbers, weights, and periodic tables. Okay... he ...more
As a kid, every Christmas I would ask for a chemistry set. Here is a kid who not only got his own chemistry set, but a room to work in and as many supplies as he wanted. His parents seem totally oblivious to what he is doing in his "lab", only requesting if he makes explosives that he take them outside! I really like this book and although many chapters were beyond my understanding, there were enough chapters about his family including Uncle Tungsten and Uncle Tin, and his two older...more
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Oliver Wolf Sacks, CBE (born July 9, 1933, London), is a British neurologist residing in the United States, who has written popular books about his patients, the most famous of which is Awakenings, which was adapted into a film of the same name starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro.
Sacks was the youngest of four children born to a prosperous North London Jewish couple: Sam, a phys...more
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Sacks was the youngest of four children born to a prosperous North London Jewish couple: Sam, a phys...more
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