The Elements: Their Origin, Abundance, and Distribution

by P.A. Cox

Here is the first book to provide a complete natural history of the elements. This interdisciplinary guide will give the reader a broad, non-technical view of the origin of the elements, the factors controlling their abundances, and their distributions in the Earth, solar system, and universe. This unique volume is based on a series of lectures given for freshman chemistry students and will be of equal value to both undergraduates and professors in all physical sciences. It includes a broad introduction to the range of existing elements and information on their nuclear and chemical properties, as well as coverage of radioactive elements, the condensation of the elements, the elements of life and the oceans. Valuable appendix materials include coverage of elemental abundances and isotopic composition, while suggestions for further reading are provided at the end of each chapter.

Genres: Chemistry, Physics

216 pages, Paperback

First published August 24, 1989

Reviews

[Nick Black · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite enjoyable and an excellent unification of chemical detritus -- I especially appreciate Cox's detailed forays into geochemistry and biochemistry. It's a fine example of the erudite New Englander/British gentleman science genre (one foot in Dirac's classroom, another firmly down in some London public school hellhole youth spent kicking it with Eric Blair, studying Euclid, and developing a stiff upper lip through regular beatings), and would have been an awesome freshman seminar. Unfortunately, it suffers from two major flaws: an otherwise quite noble effort at covering nucleosynthesis and cosmochemistry, especially photodisintegration and the s- and r-processes of supernovae, is done no good by a recently obsoleted grasp of supernova science (supernova modeling improving pretty much linearly with respect to how many FLOPS the computers at national labs can soak out of old FORTRAN programs) -- for better material here, I advise Arnett's Supernovae and Nucleosynthesis and Pagel's Nucleosynthesis and Chemical Evolution of Galaxies, both suitable for any advanced undergraduate student. Secondly, the text was, after all, aimed at freshman. Given that the average freshman could be buried in a matchbox if given an enema to rinse him free of bullshit, this results in one of those horrifying qualitative treatments of quantum physics that serves only to frustrate the initiated, and leave the rest talking in confused parables about half-dead cats and gods that either do or do not roll dice. Amazon third party, 2009-04-24. Cited in The Periodic Kingdom.