Exploring the elements : a complete guide to the periodic table

Did you know that everything in the universe - from the distant stars in the sky to the ground under your feet, from the pages of this book to you, the person reading it - is made up of just 92 ingredients ? These ingredients are known as the elements, and they are the building blocks of everything.

In this book you'll meet all the elements that we have discovered so far : the 92 elements found in nature, and an extra 26 elements that have been created by humans. You'll find out what makes every element unique, their roles in the world, and the ingenious uses that we have found for them - from the nitrogen fertilizers that help feed the world to the platinum-based medicines that help to treat cancer ; from the hydrogen used as rocket fuel to the indium in touch screen devices. Once you learn that it takes more elements to build a smartphone than it does to build a human, you'll never look at the things around you in the same way again !