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

---

New this week

Arsenic was found in the early bronze age to make bronze stronger but it’s toxic. Early alchemists gave it mystical significance.

2500 BCE

Arsenic Atomic number 33 Poison Commentary

Near East elements

New recently

2637 BCE	Chinese calendar Celestial stems and terrestrial branches God, myth, man Commentary	Huangdi astronomy
2648 BCE	Step pyramid Imhotep, the myth Replica Commentary	Imhotep architecture
2782 BCE	Egyptian calendar Drifting from a time Flooding of the Nile Commentary	Old Kingdom of Egypt astronomy
3000 BCE	Tin Atomic number 50 Tin mistakes Commentary	Mesopotamia, Balkans elements
3100 BCE	Antimony Atomic number 51 The lost art Commentary	Egypt elements

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.