Let me come right out and admit it, I’m NOT a science guy,  but I confess to owning a copy of  The Elements by Theodore Gray.

I’m also a huge fan of nature documentaries.  I love macros of little bugs and explanations of how things work.  I love reality shows like Myth Busters that explore the physical properties of things.  Real hands on stuff!

That’s why The Elements is so much fun.  It’s the same kind of fun you get from popping off facts to your friends, trying to prove who’s best at Jeopardy.  What!? Reading, fun!? Is this a campy 80’s youth PSA?  Not quite there junior, trust me when I tell you this book oozes style and interesting anecdotal stuff.

The Elements comes to you from one of the smartest people I’ve ever had the privilege to ask questions of, Theodore Gray.  His wiki page doesn’t do him justice.  A regular contributor of Popular Science Magazine, Theo writes with a sense of style rarely seen in science books.  It comes out strong in The Elements, making this much more than a coffee table book for nerds.

So when I was given the chance to send Theo some questions, I wanted to find out how he hoped his book would impact his audience, here is what he said:

Your descriptions go into detail about lore surrounding the element rather than a science textbook style breakdown of it.

It’s less boring that way.

One example that comes to mind is the execution of Alexander Litvinenko at the hands of Polonium.  With so many interesting stories surrounding the elements, what do you hope will stick in the reader’s mind most after reading your book?

The Litvinenko one is a pretty good story, but the Glomar Explorer story under manganese is hard to beat.

Who would you say this book is made for?

Kids and adults who are curious about the world.  In other words, pretty much anyone who doesn’t watch too much television.

There is obviously a ton of research involved in putting together a book like this.  I wouldn’t even know where to start.  How did you keep track of your notes and what specific items were you looking to spotlight for each element?

I wrote it mostly from memory, checking the facts as I went to be sure I was remembering correctly.  For some of the more obscure elements I found that wikipedia is an excellent source of ideas.  Not that I would believe a word I read there, but it’s a good place to get a list of possible things to follow up with in more authoritative places.

After writing this book and really getting in depth with the Periodic table, do you have a favorite element?  If so, why?  If not, what do you consider to be the most useful element and why?

Every student who writes to me asks what my favorite element is….  My answer is that I have several.  Titanium is my favorite because it has the best samples, and it’s just a great metal.  Sodium is my favorite because it explodes when you throw it in water: What more could you ask?  Gold is also my favorite because it’s just so darn pretty.

I was completely unaware of element collectors before reading this book.  What, in your opinion, drives someone to collect elements?  What do you do with them?

What do you do with Beany Babies?  Or coins?  Why would anyone collect those things?

This is not an average book in the sense of having a beginning middle and an end.  Obviously you had a structure to follow, using the periodic table as reference.  So what was the most challenging aspect of writing this book?

The first thing I wanted to do was to have it be something that people would read start to finish, rather than just sampling randomly.  This is a challenge since it would seem to consist of 100 completely unrelated essays.  My solution was to put a tease at the end of each element to get you to turn the page.  Based on the comments I’ve gotten back, it seems to have worked: People tell me that can’t put it down.

The other thing I wanted to do was make sure it did not come out as a laundry list of properties and applications of each of the elements.  You can get that information anywhere.  I wanted instead to make it more personal, to tell the stories that *I* think of when I think about each element.  The story under manganese is a perfect example of that: I wrote almost nothing about the element itself, but that story is much more interesting than anything else to do with manganese.

The most challenging thing of all, however, was the lanthanide series of rare earths. They are all really, really boring.

For more information on Theodore Gray, visit his website, or check out the search engine that was created from Wolfram Research, co founded by Gray.  You can also check out the site dedicated to the book and you can buy it here.

[-- Writer Bio --]

@Zombologist ( or Richard Bashara as he is known in his real life circles) is a storyteller at heart.  He has a strong affinity for zombies, so much so that he has devoted his life to fight for Zombie rights.  He was not lying when he said he was not a science guy, but he also was not lying when he said this was a cool book.  Think about that next time you question the integrity of Richard Bashara, hmm?