SAM KEAN tells us that “90 per cent of particles in the universe are hydrogen, and the other 10 per cent are helium. Everything else, including 6 million billion billion kilograms of Earth, is a cosmic rounding error.” It is this rounding error that provides the fascinating content of The Disappearing Spoon.
Kean’s interest in the chemical elements began as a young boy when his mother collected the spilt contents of thermometers and stored them in a plastic pill bottle. By all accounts, Kean was a sickly child and a clumsy one too, so there was much mercury to be had. His mother would pour…
