The Periodic Table- Central Ideas

Unfortunately for anyone hoping to learn about the elements, there are much more lines spent talking about Primo Levi’s life than the properties of materials in the book The Periodic Table. Despite its name, it is not so much a book about the elements, but about the life and times of its author. It explores how events and people in his life could be tied to the properties elements and spends a chapter on each of the elements (although he only titles 12).

The Periodic Table does describe some chemistry related facts, but does not go into substantial detail. The ideas in it however, tie together nicely and follow a roughly chronological timeline. Primo Levi starts with possibly the least scientific chapter of all, Argon. He briefly describes the non-reactive elements and how “They are indeed so inert, so satisfied with their condition, that they do not interfere in any chemical reaction”. He then goes on to describe how this can be related to the Jewish people of his ancestry, in his family in particular “They were never much loved or much hated; stories of unusual persecutions have not been handed down”, relating this to the un-reactiveness of Argon. All of the chapters follow this sort of format, though the topics vary from his family and friends, to a brief mention of his time in Auschwitz, to a fictional work relating to mercury he wrote himself.

Primo Levi

Levi finishes with the ‘most scientific’ of all chapters: Carbon. In this chapter he describes a fictional journey of a carbon atom through the atmosphere, plants, and multiple animals. Again only briefly, he does mention Photosynthesis, respiration and other scientific-y subjects, although one would require previous knowledge of these concepts to gain a full appreciation of these references.

This, I found, is the case with most of the scientific concepts described- to gain a full understanding of what Levi is talking about, one must really have known about the concept first. Without the understanding much of the scientific concepts become worthless and the whole book becomes about Primo Levi. Therefore, I would recommend this book not to someone who is looking to learn about chemistry, but to someone who is interested in chemistry AND willing to read an autobiography of sorts, albeit a very interesting one.

Flatland~Structure

Flatland, a book by Edwin Abbott, is a book written about the world of a 2D world, Flatland, and its inhabitants, the 2D shapes. Edwin had described the citizens of Flatland as having a system almost like ours, with different standings of people and the different lifestyles, how the triangles with the least sides are the poorest and should they have a square, an ordinary citizen, it would be sent away to live with other squares, where it will learn and study, away from its parents, like the poor being adopted into families like our modern society.

The book had started off with a story, with the story told an ordinary citizen of Flatland, a Square, who was visited in a dream by a 3D sphere, which convinced the Square of a 3 dimensional world called the Spaceland. The square later tried to tell all the Flatlanders about this world but to no avail. Later, the Square questioned the sphere about the possibilities of a fourth dimension, to which the Sphere angrily leaves the Square, thinking that the Square is incapable of comprehending other dimensions.

Many people after reading this will sympathise with the Square, thinking that it was outrageous for the Sphere to leave the Square after such a plausible theory, after all, Flatland was ignorant of Spaceland and its 3 Dimensional space, but that didn’t mean that Spaceland didn’t exist. Edwin had used the simple story to try and tell us that there is more to the universe than we think. He had first started with a visit from Spaceland. Due to us humans living in a 3 Dimensional world, we would believe that such a world exist and thus believe in Spaceland. We would laugh at the Flatlanders of their ignorance of Spaceland while sympathising with the Square and its valiant efforts to spread the knowledge. When the Square asks the Sphere about the existence of a fourth dimension, we realise, how like the sphere, we easily dismiss the ideas and theories.

With a book like Edwin’s, though it may be short, it managed to express his idea’s through using a simple yet relatable story. Like the Science Delusion, Flatland wants to tell the Scientists to keep an open mind, accept new ideas and not to follow the dogmas so strictly.

 

 

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star

The Night Sky

Pin pricks of light spear its way through the darkness of space. A tornado of red, flowing energy sweeps its way through the universe, over the dark and the light. At its eye, the light is the brightest. Making all other stars in the area fade away, until it is alone.

The Science Delusion – Structure

The Science Delusion written by Rupert Sheldrake is a book that seeks to explain that modern science is based on a series of dogmas. The title seems to allude to Richard Dawkins The God Delusion and it is possible for some parallels to be made between the two. The book summarises much of Rupert Sheldrake’s previous work while also including some new ideas about materialism.

Rupert Sheldrake has structured the book into 10 main chapters; each being a different scientific dogma that he believes is holding back research.  These were concepts that scientists had been using for years in development and research, and Rupert Sheldrake wanted to break them. He named them the “Ten Scientific Dogmas” which are: Nature is Mechanical, The Total Amount of Matter and Energy are Always the Same, The laws of Nature are Fixed, Matter is Unconscious, Nature is Purposeless, All Biological Inheritance Material, Memories are Stored as Material Traces, Minds are Confined to Brains,

The Science Delusion not by Rupert Sheldrake

Psychic Phenomena are Illusory, Mechanistic Medicine is the only kind that really works. As you read through them you may find that you agree or disagree with the dogmas, but in each chapter Sheldrake attempts to disprove them one at a time. The chapters are not fully connected together, as they all refer to a different dogma but still refer slightly to other chapters. If a reader was to read a single, random chapter in the book they would still be able to understand the main concepts but may not be able to relate to the finer details. For this reason reading the book from start to finish may be a better course of action.

The chapters are structured much like an essay: introduction, body paragraphs and the conclusion. As this is such a simple and familiar structure to everyone it makes the chapters a lot easier to follow and understand. As he introduces the relevant dogma in every chapter, even if the reader is not familiar with the idea it they would still be able to understand and enjoy his explanations.

At the end of each chapter, Sheldrake would write a summary of its contents. This helps readers understand the harder scientific concepts and makes it possible to skip chapters and only read the summary. Included in the summary is also a series of questions, designed to question your beliefs in the dogmas. I believe this is a great idea as it doesn’t seem to force the reader to accept its concepts raised in the book but instead allows them to make their own decisions.

The Science Delusion is an interesting book that questions some fundamental scientific content. As you read it you will often find that it makes you question some things that we have always considered to be true. It makes you wonder if there are any other dogmas that you are blindly following without being aware of the whole truth.

The Periodic Table – Language

Voted the best Science Book Ever, Primo Levi’s The Periodic Table is a book that is sure to change reader’s ideas about science writing. Contrary to most science writing books, it is not a just an explanation of a new scientific concept instead it is written in the form of an autobiography. He links his biography with the periodic table; a tabular arrangement of the chemical elements. Each chapter is a named after a different chemical element, the first being “Argon”, the second being “Hydrogen”, and so one so forth. The structure and style of his writing make the book unique and interesting.

Primo Levi

The style of writing that Primo Levi uses makes the book a lot more appealing. His characterisations of characters like his Grandmother, his friends and other characters in the book make them feel real and relatable. As he spends time making his characters relatable, when he links his anecdotes to the properties of the element that he is explaining the reader is able to better understand the thinking behind his links. He uses metaphors and other such conventions to characterise the characters, a convention of writing that is not commonly used in science writing while still being able to explain the scientific concepts. The characterisation greatly improves the book and is one reason why the book is one of the best science writing books of all time.

Metaphors are used throughout the text to conjure thought provoking images and ideas. They leave notions in the reader’s minds that may change the way that they think. Often times they are not explained in the greatest detail, leaving room in the readers mind to interpret the metaphor in their own way. An example of such is: “Man is a centaur, a tangle of flesh and mind, divine inspiration and dust.” The metaphor relates man to a centaur, stating that inspiration and art is derived from our body and that in the end we will be just dust. The metaphor states the simple meaning but it is possible that every person could understand it is a different way. The metaphors instigate interest and curiosity in the reader, and make the few boring chapters in the book a bit more groovy.

The language conventions used in The Periodic Table, make the book an interesting change to the majority of other science writing books. It shows that it is possible for science writing to have many different styles that engage different readers. Overall is an intriguing book that I would recommend to anyone.

The Periodic Table—Content

Primo Levi’s 1975 elementary work (heh heh) is widely heralded as one of the best pieces of science writing ever, and its little reason why. It’s one of the most accessible works of the genre, with its seemingly heavy subject being broken down into language of science topics that we non-scientists can actually comprehend and, perhaps even more importantly, is an autobiography of his life

The book focuses on elements of the aforementioned periodic table, such as carbon, hydrogen, gold and silver, so it can be forgiven if you think this a boring lecture on the origin of the various atoms. Instead, Levi relates the various elements (one per chapter/short story) to his real-life events, i.e. in Chapter 1 (Argon, and chronicling his early years); he says how Argon is an inert gas—resistant to reaction due to its outer electron shell configuration—and the most common of these inert or noble gases in our atmosphere, and goes on to say how Argon bore many similarities to his ancestors with their nobility and inertia. This is somewhat convoluted but a refreshing attempt at trying something new rather than the same old stuff we’ve come to expect from science writers a la Stephen Hawking.

The autobiography introduces a non-science element: this is a drawcard for readers who are perhaps interested in this type of text but put off by the heavier stuff. I found I did get bored of his recounts of distillation and whatnot, but the whole “overcoming adversity” part of this Jewish chemist’s tale more than made up for it. That’s just one of the ways non-science elements that relates really well to the main plotline.

As the book wore on I felt that it did this less and less, but the way the Carbon atom travels through various entities at the end was a real highlight, and saving grace for this book as a whole.

Overall the content of this book made it a sometimes dull but surprisingly really memorable read. I would highly recommend this to anyone in the science fraternity.

The Science Delusion~Structure

The Science Delusion, by Rupert Sheldrake, is a book written about the 10 dogmas of science. Using a title very similar to the bestselling The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, this book tackles the 10 dogmas of science and how they might be wrong. One might think that dogmas could not be possibly false, as they are the most fundamental knowledge for scientists for years, so why are they being questioned right now? The 10 dogmas are:

• Nature is Mechanical
• The Total Amount of Matter and Energy are Always the Same
• The laws of Nature are Fixed
• Matter is Unconscious
• Nature is Purposeless
• All Biological Inheritance Material
• Memories are Stored as Material Traces
• Minds are Confined to Brains
• Psychic Phenomena are Illusory
• Mechanistic Medicine is the only kind that really works

One might look at this and agree with all of them. However, not everyone agree with these dogmas. The 10 dogmas basically states that everything is mechanical that can be explained by Science. However, that is not true. While Science can explain how the eyes see, they cannot really explain the experience of the eyes. Scientists are meant to explain objects in a purely objective way, which is proven hard when they are trying to explain experiences, for one does not simply describe flowers without the word ‘beautiful’.

Rupert has split his book into 10 main chapters, each about a dogma, making it easier for the audience to go through and find a specific chapter without reading the whole thing. The best thing about his writing is that he knows where we, the audience, stand in terms of knowledge. He only talked about the most fundamental science, without going into too much detail while still conveying what he is trying to say.

At the end of each of his chapters, he would ask questions about the dogma mentioned in the chapter, making it not only a good review, but also lets us make a judgement call instead of forcing the belief down our throats. So if you do belief any of the dogmas, have a read of this book, and ask yourself this question, ‘Is this dogma true’? Maybe if the scientists modified their dogmas slightly, they might progress faster.

The Periodic Table~Structure

The Periodic Table, a book written by Primo Levi, is about his experiences as a doctoral-level chemist, with all the chapters relating to an element on the periodic table. He had used those elements to describe his life, from growing up in a Jewish household to finding a German chemist after the war.

He had started his book with Argon, which was used to describe his childhood, how it was like for him growing up and managing to connect each element to a part of his life, as if he was the Periodic Table. Even though the book was an autobiography, Primo had managed to incorporate science elements into his life, by using lavish languages to describe his experiences as carbon, he had managed to not only tell his story, but also teaching us about the element carbon.

The book was also structured in a chronological order, starting from birth to his prime, using an element for each chapter as he grows in the book. This makes him more relatable to people as instead of only explaining science elements, he tells us a personal story, relating the science topic to a part of his life, making it much more personal and much less boring for the general audience.

Although his book may be entertaining, some of the chapters had made me as bored as a plank such as the beginning of the book, he had mostly talked about his family, without much going on and not much science elements involved. Overall, the book had done well, with many links and metaphors connecting his life to the elements to the Periodic Table, making the book, not only an excellent read, but also an educational piece of art worthy to be read. The next time someone asks me about any elements mentioned in the book, I would definitely recommend this book to them.

Flatland by Edwin Abbott- 4c’s

You may want to read some of the other posts on Flatland as well.

Connection
I have pondered the idea of a two-dimensional world before, as it is mentioned in the book Albert Einstein and His Inflatable Universe (no plug intended :). It is an interesting idea that poses many logical problems that are sometimes un-answerable by one self’s pondering. Reading Flatland answered some of these questions- though sometimes in creative non-scientific ways. Some of these included how the 2d shapes see each other, because two dimensions is completely flat- which is answered in a creative way by Edwin Abbott- by “essence of vision”, they “just do”.

Challenge
One idea from the book that I did not agree with, and so in accordance with the sub title of this section must challenge (even though it is not a scientific concept I am challenging), is that our place is society is predetermined at birth by our parent’s actions. I am not sure whether the values held in flatland reflect those held by Edwin Abbot; however I do think it is a rather unfair idea. The narrator of the book expresses that in Flatland they believe each generation should automatically improve on his father’s class in society by one step (an added side), but cannot improve their own position no matter how hard they try. Also, if a shape does something despicable and has a side taken away, then his descendants will suffer and they can do nothing about it.

Concept
One of the most important concepts I took away from this book is one of knowledge. It is the idea that our understanding of something- physics, extra dimensions or the universe- possibly anything, could be wrong. It is the idea that we do not know which parts of science we don’t understand and that we should accept challenges to our understanding with grace and in a dignified manner. Not like the square, or the sphere or any of the shapes who met challenges with hostility.

Changes
The changes this book advocate stem from the section above. Although it does not directly state this idea, it is easy to pick up. By illustrating how not to act and the consequences for behaving that way, the book Flatland by Edwin Abbott presents a compelling argument to keep an open mind towards new ways of thinking.

Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott – Structure

Welcome to Flatland, people.

So recently I wrote a post of my delight in reading Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott, and all of the wonderful language conventions it uses to create an intellectually intriguing text. However before I leave Flatland into the archive of science literature analysis posts, there’s something that I feel compelled to talk about, which is Flatland’s structure.

The main reason why I want to talk about the structure of Flatland is because it uses a particular story structure which reappears in many texts including “Jonah and the Whale” in the Bible, and it reappears so often because it’s a story that has strong impact on people.

“So what is this archaic story structure” I hear you ask? Ladies and Gentlemen, I’m talking about the story of what I call “the Failed Prophecy”, which is very much integrated into the story of Flatland.

To start with, here’s a quick chronological summary of what happens in Flatland. So our story starts with Square, a 2-dimensional creature in a 2-dimensional world. Here an extensive introduction is given about the society of these 2-dimensional creatures covering a wide range of topics: gender roles, social class, perception, architecture; pretty much everything we would want to know about the world of Flatland.

After that very long introduction, the book shifts to the world of Lineland where only one dimension exists. Square visits here through a dream, and becomes acquainted with the idea of dimensionality. And then the book shifts again to the world of 3-dimensions, where a prophet from that world comes and reveals Square to a whole new perspective of dimensionality too.

After the departing of the 3D prophet, Square begins his mission to reveal to others this great revelation. He begins with his son, however even after extensive explanations, his son responds in ridicule. Square, although disappointed, continues to spread the world, but person after person, they all reject his inconceivable idea of a 3^rd dimension, and he is sent to prison, cast as a lunatic prophesising about an inexistent truth.

So how does the “Failed Prophet” story fit into Flatland? Well firstly, the primary structure of the “Failed Prophet” story is the introduction, “the Vision”, and “the Prophesy.”

So in this story, the introduction’s role in the Failed Prophesy structure is to introduce the problem. Although various problems exist in Flatland, the main one which is focussed on is the ignorance of a greater truth i.e. dimensionality.

This greater truth is explored when Square goes through the stage which I like to call “The Vision.” Essentially this is where that greater truth is revealed, in this case, the existence of creatures in different dimensions. The visit from the 3-D prophet then allows for his mission to become clear; to prophesize about the existence of different dimensions.

And then this is where the prophecy stage comes into toll, where he attempts to convince people of this truth, which unfortunately for him, results in being cast as a heretic and held in jail because of the inconceivability of his message to a 2-dimensional creature. And that people, is the story structure of the Failed Prophet in Flatland.

The reason why I like the Failed Prophet structure is because although it’s sad, it has a very human, realistic quality, which draws on the relatable feeling of rejection. It’s a story which can really get to you; because everyone at some point has felt rejection before, and when we see a story of what seems like a hero figure ready to spread the word of a greater truth, turn into a story of rejection despite good intentions; it makes you a bit sad.

Now if you read my last post about Flatland, you might be baffled at this response, since I wrote before about how it’s a book for people interested in maths, not for those looking for a down-to-earth, moving narrative. But now that I’ve realised how symbolic and deep this story is, I’ve changed my perspective a bit.

So if you’ve already read the book, I challenge you to read it again, and notice how a seemingly over-wordy math book, is actually a powerful, humanistic story of rejection.