Quotes by Sam Kean, The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements

Explore a curated collection of 12 quotes by Sam Kean, The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements. Discover timeless wisdom, insightful thoughts, and memorable words that have inspired readers around the world. Browse through the gallery below and click on any quote to read more.

Never underestimate spite as a motivator for genius. — Sam Kean, The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements
Think of the most fussy science teacher you ever had. The one who docked your grade if the sixth decimal place in your a — Sam Kean, The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements
The color of the emitted light depends on the relative heights of the starting and ending energy levels. A crash between — Sam Kean, The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements
Germans at the time believed, a little oddly, that dyes killed germs by turning the germs’ vital organs the wrong color. — Sam Kean, The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements
For his part, Mendeleev scanned Lecoq de Boisbaudran’s data on gallium and told the experimentalist, with no justificati — Sam Kean, The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements
Today alpha equals 1/137.0359 or so. Regardless, its value makes the periodic table possible. It allows atoms to exist a — Sam Kean, The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements
All the elements other than hydrogen and helium make up just 0.04 percent of the universe. Seen from this perspective, t — Sam Kean, The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements
When you do the math and examine how much energy is produced per atomic union, you find that fusing anything to iron’s t — Sam Kean, The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements
Also unlike a planet, an electron—if excited by heat or light—can leap from its low-energy shell to an empty, high-energ — Sam Kean, The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements
Yet they enjoy the high. In the surest sign that selenium actually makes them go mad, cattle grow addicted to locoweed d — Sam Kean, The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements
Unlike modern pills, these hard antimony pills didn’t dissolve in the intestines, and the pills were considered so valua — Sam Kean, The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements
All we know for sure is that if some astronomer turned a telescope to a far-off star cluster tonight and found incontrov — Sam Kean, The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements