Welcome to The book of science. Come here each week to find poetry and commentary on another milestone of the history of science.

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This week

In 1735, Georg Brandt showed that cobalt was a metal and responsible for the blue color in glass.

1735

Cobalt Atomic number 27 Stuff that jinxes Commentary

Stockholm—Georg Brandt elements

Recently

1732	Delisle scale Backwards Delisle scale3 Commentary	Joseph-Nicolas Delisle thermometry
1730	Réaumur scale Shortcomings Imitators Commentary	René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur thermometry
1729	Aberration of light It’s not where it seems Aberration of sight Commentary	James Bradley electromagnetism
1724	Fahrenheit scale Frigorific mixture Recalibration Commentary	Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit thermometry
1701	Rømer scale Previous thermometers To each his own Commentary	Ole Rømer thermometry
1701	Newton scale Lessons of alchemy Multiple instruments Commentary	Isaac Newton thermometry

Parts of this book

You may jump to some parts of The book of science directly by selecting menu items:

• About, more about this book
• Contents, a table of milestones in the history of science, arranged chronologically
• Elements, tables for the chemical elements
  • Periodic table of the elements
  • Index of elements by year of discovery
  • Index of elements by atomic number
• Scientists, index of scientists, by last name
• Sciences, index of sciences
• Eponymous, index of milestones named after scientists
• Keywords, index of keywords in poems and titles
• Search, where you can search the book by word or phrase

Related works

You may read subsets of The book of science as separate volumes. These generally contain only the last poem on each milestone from the full book:

• Elements of elements of science
• The booklet of science

This web site also includes other works by Tom Sharp and work by other poets.