Book Reviewed - Superheavy: Making and Breaking the Periodic Table, by Kit Chapman

The synthetic proposition

This is a very specialized book that may interest readers who appreciate synthetic chemistry. The author narrates the story behind the discovery of new elements in the laboratory and briefly discusses the chemistry of atoms. These synthetic elements do not exist in nature and decay very rapidly because of very low half-lives. A college level chemistry is helpful to understand and appreciate the work of this author.

Much of the study of new elements took place at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at Berkeley, California, and at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research facilities at Dubna, Russia. Other notable work also occurred at the Institute for Heavy Ion Research at Darmstadt, Germany and at Japan's RIKEN Linear Accelerator Facility in Wako.

My own interest in this book is to understand what happens when you keep adding protons and neutrons to the nuclei. At some point, the stability of the orbital electrons is destroyed as more protons are added to the nucleus. The maximum atomic number predicted is between 170 and 210; Uranium is the last naturally occurring element that has an atomic number of 92. But the nuclear stability (physics) is not the same as stability of the electronic shells (chemistry). The electronic basis for the periodicity disappears as we go higher in atomic numbers, because electronic shells 8p and 7d orbitals may be very close in energy to 5g an 6f orbitals (closely spaced energy levels.) This is reflected in a series of new elements that show multiple and barely distinguishable oxidation states.

If you look at the physics part, the nucleus also has nuclear energy shells. Just like the electrons orbiting the nucleus have electronic shells. Each nuclear shell will have a cluster of protons and neutrons. If you filled those shells, the nucleus became stable; if left unfilled, the nucleus will break apart.

The author says that element 118, oganesson does not have electron shells, then how do you call that an element? Its atomic number suggests that it is a noble element like helium, neon and argon that contain filled electron shells, and hence known to be inert. It is likely that in oganesson, the electron shells are like electron soup, which makes it quite reactive contrary to other noble elements of the periodic chart. The periodic table stops being relevant here in terms of predicting properties. Theoretical studies indicate that heavy atoms may contort - nuclei stretching out, folding in on themselves, even warping into a doughnut shape with a hole in the middle. The author does not elaborate, nor does he discuss what is “hole” in terms of spacetime warping. There is a certainly relativistic effect. We need more discussion here. Elements with very high atomic numbers challenge traditional way thinking about reality just like black holes. Tightly packed spacetime help us understand the very fabric of this universe.

Book Reviewed - End Times: A Brief Guide to the End of the World, by Bryan Walsh

An interesting perspective for the future of the planet

The author offers an interesting view for the future from a variety of catastrophes; asteroid impact, volcanoes, nuclear war, climate change, diseases, biotech, artificial intelligence, and aliens. He articulates these world-ending apocalypse with passion. It's not just the rising tide of climate change and the deadly natural disasters that seem to be piling up with each passing year. Our very future is in danger as it has never been before, both from an array of cosmic and earthbound threats and from the very technologies that made us prosperous.

We know how bad it can get; the two world wars; the Black Death which killed 200 million people in the fourteenth century; the biggest hurricanes and most devastating earthquakes. These risks are darker than the darkest days humanity has ever known. Our species has always lived under the shadow of existential risk we just didn't know it. At least five times over the course of our planet's 4.5-billion-year history, life was wiped out completely, but each time it was reborn with vengeance. It is good to know that life regenerates itself when the planet offers interesting possibilities. Solar system has another 4.5 billion years to go and earth may shape into new future.

Book Reviewed - Superior: The Return of Race Science by Angela Saini

Politically correct but scientifically unsound

This book drew a lot of attention recently in which the author suggests that the use of race in biological/medical research is due to widespread racism. For example, in Chapter 1, she argues that Out of Africa theory is invented by Europeans, and Nazis wanted to prove superiority of Aryan race. This is false; Hitler made alliances with Muslims from the Middle east against Jews. The Third Reich was anti-Semitic. If Hitler was really a racist, he would have invaded Africa. In fact, many SS officers who went to live in Egypt after the war became Muslims and followed Islamic practices.

The author is also in error when she reminds readers that races correspond to “arbitrary” divisions of population variation that are “politically and economically useful,” The fact is that there are heritable characteristics that allow us to divide into a set of races in such a way that all the members share traits and tendencies with each other that they do not share with members of any other race. These traits and tendencies are viewed as race. Natural barriers such as oceans (e.g. the Atlantic), deserts (e.g. the Sahara) and mountain ranges (e.g. the Himalayas) impeded gene flow between different populations for substantial periods of time. When there is limited gene flow between populations that have come under different selection pressures, we would expect them to gradually diverge from one another over via the processes of genetic drift and natural selection. Races therefore correspond to human populations that have been living in relative isolation from one another, under different regimes of selection. This means that racial categories identify real phenotypic differences and reflect real genetic variation. Natural philosophers began to classify humans into different races because they looked different from one another. These differences reflect their divergent geographical origins. But the most controversial area of “race science” is research into population differences in cognitive ability.

Chimpanzees share the distinction of being our closest living relative which share about 99% of our genes. A unique collaboration between the humanities and the natural sciences; geneticists, historians, archaeologists and linguists found a common ground about the origins of modern human beings including the common origins of languages from an ancient language called Indo-European language. Europeans today are a mix of the blending of at least three ancient populations of hunter-gatherers and farmers who moved into Europe in separate migrations. Modern human beings arose some 200,000 years ago, and for 190,000 years, they we were all dark-skinned, reflecting the origins from Africa. Caucasians are the product of a work of evolution across Europe, while scientist have discovered three genes that produce light skin – they have played a part in the lightening of Europeans’ skin color and the color of the eye over the past 8,000 years. The process of skin lightening, known as “depigmentation,” occurred due to a series of mutations in one particular gene called SCL24A5.

Equating hereditarian claims with racism is illogical and irresponsible. Many of the ideas that Saini classifies as “scientific racism” are empirical claims. Besides, race is not a social construct, but nationalism and regionalism are certainly social constructs. She uses false arguments to fit her theory. This is a blatant abuse of scientific data to write a politically correct fable. Her conclusions are inaccurate. I would recommend staying away from this apologue.

Book Reviewed: The Trouble with Gravity: Solving the Mystery Beneath Our Feet, by Richard Panek

Gravity: A tour of a heavy topic

Gravity is a fundamental force that creates physical reality we experience and become conscious of. Three major figures of science unlocked the mysteries gravity: Galileo, the first to take a close look at the process of free and restricted fall; Newton, originator of the concept of gravity as a universal force; and Einstein, who proposed that gravity is a curvature of the four-dimensional space-time continuum. But it goes further in quantum physics which describes spacetime in discrete quanta, i.e. in bits and pieces at the most fundamental quantum scale. In other words, it contrasts traditional wisdom that spacetime is continuous.

Gravity is still a cold case and we are not any closer to solving this, but it is leading into many new avenues about the cosmos. Detection of gravitational waves and black holes have been exciting in physics, and information is emerging as the key player in the operation of matter and energy in spacetime. It is the transformation of matter (nonliving) into a living material (life), and how forces of nature become essential for existence (physical reality).

If you are looking for a book to read about the recent advances in gravitation, then I would suggest looking elsewhere. The author does not focus on the concept of gravity to any significant extent that would generate interest. He reports a mishmash of news and physics ideas that looks like a smorgasbord than a navel discussion.