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 (starting 29 November 2025)

In 1814, Joseph von Fraunhofer discovered that each element produces different spectral lines.

1814

Spectral lines Breakthrough Spectral analysis Commentary

Joseph von Fraunhofer physics

Recently

1813	Chemical nomenclature Differences Symbols Commentary	Jöns Jacob Berzelius chemistry
1812	Mohs scale Other hardness scales Cheese scale Commentary	Friedrich Mohs geology
1811	Iodine Atomic number 53 Stuff that stings Commentary	Dijon—Bernard Courtois elements
1811, 1909	Avogadro constant Related constants Macro and micro Commentary	Amedeo Avogadro, Jean Baptiste Perrin stoichiometry
1809	Acquired characteristics Soft heredity Bensoin Commentary	Jean-Baptiste Lamarck evolution
1808	Atomic theory Notation Symbols Commentary	John Dalton physics

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.