All the elements other than hydrogen and helium make up just 0.04 percent of the universe. Seen from this perspective, the periodic system appears to be rather insignificant. But the fact remains that we live on the earth… where the relative abundance of elements is quite different.

— Sam Kean

All we know for sure is that if some astronomer turned a telescope to a far-off star cluster tonight and found incontrovertible evidence of life, even microbial scavengers, it would be the most important discovery ever—proof that human beings are not so special after all. Except that we exist, too, and can understand and make such discoveries.

— Sam Kean

Also unlike a planet, an electron—if excited by heat or light—can leap from its low-energy shell to an empty, high-energy shell. The electron cannot stay in the high-energy state for long, so it soon crashes back down. But this isn’t a simple back-and-forth motion, because as it crashes, the electron jettisons energy by emitting light.

— Sam Kean

Atoms consist of a positive nucleus and negative electrons flying around outside it. Electrons closest to the nucleus feel a strong negative-on-positive tug, and the bigger atoms get, the bigger the tug. In huge atoms, electrons whip around at speeds close to the speed of light.

— Sam Kean

Even fictional characters sometimes receive unwarranted medical opinions. Doctors have diagnosed Ebenezer Scrooge with OCD, Sherlock Holmes with autism, and Darth Vader with borderline personality disorder.

— Sam Kean

For his part, Mendeleev scanned Leon de Boisbaudran’s data on gallium and told the experimentalist, with no justification, that he must have measured something wrong, because the density and weight of gallium differed from Mendeleev’s predictions. This betrays a flabbergasting amount of gall, but as science philosopher-historian Eric Sherri put it, Mendeleev always “was willing to bend nature to fit his grand philosophical scheme.” The only difference between Mendeleev and crack pottery is that Mendeleev was right: Leon de Boisbaudran soon retracted his data and published results that corroborated Mendeleev’s predictions.

— Sam Kean

Germans at the time believed, a little oddly, that dyes killed germs by turning the germs’ vital organs the wrong color.

— Sam Kean

In fact, his travelogues spend amazingly little time discussing his blindness. Only one passage stands out for its frank discussion of his handicap and how it changed his worldview. In it, Holman was reminiscing about a few rendezvous from his past. Disarmingly, he admitted that he had no idea what his paramours looked like, or even whether they were homely. Moreover, he didn't care: by abandoning the standards of the sighted world, he argues, he could tap into a more divine and more authentic beauty. Hearing a woman's voice and feeling her caresses -- and then filling in what was missing with his own fancy -- gave him more pleasure than the mere sight of a woman ever had, he said, a pleasure beyond reality. "Are there any who imagine," Holman asked, "that my loss of eyesight must necessarily deny me the enjoyment of such contemplation? How much more do I pity the mental darkness which could give rise to such an error.

— Sam Kean

In these days before antiseptics, doctors themselves also suffered high mortality rates. Florence Nightingale, a nurse during the Crimean War (1853-1856), watched one particularly inept surgeon cut both himself and, somehow, a bystander while blundering about during an amputation. Both men contracted an infection and died, as did the patient. Nightingale commented that it was the only surgery she'd ever seen with 300 percent mortality.

— Sam Kean

Never underestimate spite as a motivator for genius.

— Sam Kean