BookS & ArtS

All about that atomic weight

creating and proving the existence of these ele- Shaughnessy was involved in the discovery of ments, the stories in the book almost certainly all the recently discovered elements, and was would have been rejected as implausible fiction also the undisputed champion of the unoffi- were they included in a script for a blockbuster cial LLNL contest to see who could watch Star movie on the Transfermium Wars. Wars: The Force Awakens the most times in Chapman’s book is part science, part his- theatres. These stories will undoubtedly make tory, part multi-subject biography told chrono­ Superheavy more accessible to audiences with logically with his travelogue interspersed limited knowledge of nuclear chemistry, such throughout. When he reaches Berkeley, he as high school and college chemistry students. realizes, as I once did, that one should pack a Although Chapman demonstrates a deep sweatshirt or two when visiting the Bay Area knowledge of science fiction, one might expect during the summer. Chapman also makes stops the next meeting of the Avengers to be a little in Sweden, Japan, Italy and several other coun- awkward when Thor cites Chapman’s asser- tries to trace the steps of the element hunters tion that thorium is the only comic book char- who pushed the limits of nuclear chemistry to acter to appear on the periodic table. Captain fill in the periodic table. In particular, Chapman America and Iron Man might disagree with Superheavy: Making and Breaking the spends time at the Joint Institute for Nuclear that claim. Chapman should be prepared as Periodic Table Research in Dubna, Russia, interviewing Yuri Titanium Man, Cobalt Man and all the Metal Edited by Kit Chapman Oganessian, who lends his name to element Men also might pay him a visit in the not too Bloomsbury Sigma, 2019, 304pp, £16.99. 118 — oganesson. Oganessian is the only per- distant future. son other than Glenn Seaborg to be granted this f you are falling behind in celebrating the honour during his lifetime, and he provides the Chapman’s book is part international year of the periodic table, colour of personal experience to decades old science, part history, part Ithe forthcoming book Supeheavy: Making and stories from behind the Iron Curtain. multi-subject biography told Breaking the Periodic Table may provide suffi- Post-World War II politics feature promi- cient incentive to overcome your procrastina- nently in almost half of Superheavy, as the cre- chronologically with his tion. The title Superheavy might conjure images ation and testing of nuclear weapons helped travelogue interspersed of a book that chronicles the rise of Motörhead spark the race to create new elements. These throughout on the British heavy metal scene, or provide a stories feature Alberto Ghiorso and Seaborg retrospective on how The Fat Boys helped open squaring off with Oganessian and Georgy Superheavy ends with a perspective on the the door to beatboxing in rap music, but author Flyorov in a transnational proxy war for global uncharted territory scientists need to explore Kit Chapman veers off in a slightly different supremacy between the United States and the in order to continue expanding the periodic direction. Chapman was, until recently, an edi- Soviet Union. Much of the American perspec- table. Beyond oganesson, some models pre- tor at Chemistry World and focuses his scientific tive was recounted in 2000’s The Transuranium dict that relativistic effects will break the peri- and writing experience on a book that recounts People, which Chapman summarizes and seam- odic table as we have understood it for the past the events that led to the completion of the sev- lessly blends with the accounts from compli- 150 years. Extremely large nuclei might mean enth row of the periodic table. He also manages mentary and competing stories from Russian that the electrons will no longer reside in the to squeeze in a healthy dose of pop culture ref- and other contributors. For younger readers, neat shells one would expect using a classical erences in the process, including Motörhead Superheavy provides a compelling snapshot understanding of the periodic table. These and fans ill-conceived petition to grant Lemmy an of the paranoia resulting from the Cold War other hypotheses and speculations demon- eponymic element in 2015. as well as insight into the chemistry on the strate that the fascination with superheavy The periodic table is iconic; however, outside outskirts of the periodic table. elements and the periodic table will not end the scientific community, most people are not While many of the protagonists have passed with element 118, and hopefully will inspire familiar with many of its architects, with the pos- away, Chapman manages to fill the gaps with curiosity in a new generation of scientists. sible exception of Dmitri Mendeleev. Likewise, stories documented in the archives, and con- Shawn C. Burdette since modern periodic tables have included sults with their former colleagues and current Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Worcester several elements in the seventh row for decades, standard-bearers in modern element hunt- Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA, USA. and most of those elements are too short-lived ing. This includes an interview with Dawn e-mail: [email protected] to directly impact daily life, neither the discov- Shaughnessy, Star Wars superfan and leader of https://doi.org/10.1038/s41570-019-0104-4

ery stories nor the people who authored them the nuclear and radiochemistry group at Law­ Competing interests are widely known. Given the Herculean task of rence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). The author declares no competing interests.

346 | june 2019 | volume 3 www.nature.com/natrevchem