The Magic Furnace - The Search For the Origin of Atoms, by Marcus Chown

"If the atoms that make up the world around uscompleted when the endothermic origin of the
could tell their stories, each and every one ofelements heavier than iron was identified as
them would sing a tale to dwarf the greatestsupernovae, the result of the detonations of high
epics of literature", Chown proclaims in themass stars, at the end of their short lives. It
prologue of this book. The work is his attempt toturns out that we, and everything we see were
chronicle humankind's efforts, commencing withliterally 'made in heaven'.
Democritus in Ancient Greece over two millenniaFrom the synthesis of hydrogen and helium in the
ago, to discover what the smallest constituents ofBig Bang to the discovery of such helium in the
matter are, and from where they came.chromosphere of the Sun, from star-forming
It's an enthralling, comprehensive history lesson inregions of interstellar gas to white dwarfs,
the development of astronomy and atomicneutron stars and black holes, from Newton's
physics, encapsulating key moments andprism to the development of spectroscopy and
discoveries in the search to answer the questionspectrometry, from the discovery of electrons,
why 98% of the mass of visible matter in theprotons and neutrons to electromagnetism and
universe is composed of hydrogen and helium,the nuclear forces, from Becquerel's discovery of
and where the remaining 2% of 'metals' cameradioactivity to the nuclear fusion of hydrogen into
from.helium and beyond, each step towards our
In one of the greatest all-time detective storiescontemporary understanding of astrophysics and
featuring an all-star cast, the research of suchatomic synthesis is both logically conveyed and
notable scientists as Lavoisier, Hooke, Boyle,clearly explained.
Dalton, Mendeleev, Davy, Faraday, Avogadro,Chown's writing style is both inspiring and
Thomson, Curie, Rutherford, Chadwick, Einsteincaptivating, and you will have difficulty putting this
and Hoyle is all beautifully woven together tobook down. Indeed, on a re-reading I found it just
arrive at one inescapable conclusion: that all of theas captivating.
chemical elements from Beryllium and Boron toIt is essential background reading for all of those
Iron in the Periodic Table, were exothermicallywanting to learn about the lives of stars,
cooked up in the cores of dying red giant starsastrophysics and the reasons behind the
and vomited into the interstellar gas once thoseabundances of the chemical elements.
stars died. The jigsaw puzzle was finally