Welcome to Litsy!

I liked the bits about his childhood, but when he‘d go off on long tangents on the history of Chemistry, he lost me. I quit reading the footnotes halfway through and wished for more details of his life, but he writes well and I didn‘t hate it, so I give it a so-so.

Based on the number of times I found myself exclaiming aloud some variation on the theme of “nifty!“, this book is worth a read. The humour and wonder the author exhibits, the playful framing, greatly increased my enjoyment and comprehension, and the likelihood that I'll engage in a non-fiction topic I don't have an educational background in. 1/?

🍰♥️

When the scope of the project hits home.
Jaw. On the floor.
Here I am reading about transparent blocks thinking of a glass block wall and then:
Ten years?!
$10 million dollars worth of platinum?! 😲

I like it when the scientists get silly. 😁🥧🍕

“...go and find a hotter place.“ 🔥🧐🎩

Part admirable commitment to science, part welcome distraction? 🫤

Call that the fart-attribution theorem. 😂

Tiny angry bees theory! 😁🐝

Perhaps there are some scientifically discoveries that were not made earlier in history because the scientists involved did not survive to deliver the findings! 🤦🏼‍♂️