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

Magnesium: atomic number: 12; weight: 24.305; Alkaline earth metal; discovery: 1755—Joseph Black, Humphry Davy.

1755, 1808

Magnesium Atomic number 12 Stuff that burns Commentary

Glasgow, London—Joseph Black, Humphry Davy elements

Recently

1752	D’Alembert’s paradox Incompressible and inviscid Cognitive dissonance Commentary	Jean le Rond d’Alembert fluid dynamics
1751	Nickel Atomic number 28 Stuff that annoys Commentary	Los—Axel Fredrik Cronstedt elements
1750	Platinum Atomic number 78 Stuff that doesn’t tarnish Commentary	London—Antonio de Ulloa, Charles Wood, William Brownrigg, William Hyde Wollaston, Smithson Tennant elements
1747	Electric charge Electric pleasures Electronic addiction Commentary	Benjamin Franklin electromagnetism
1745 - 1746	Leyden jar Capacitance Shock Commentary	Ewald Georg von Kleist, Pieter van Musschenbroek electromagnetism
1743	Ethnography Disciplines Saved for eternity Commentary	Gerhard Friedrich Müller ethnography
1742	Centigrade scale Metric degrees Arbitrary decisions Commentary	Anders Celsius, Jean-Pierre Christin 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.