Reviews for Explorations with sugars

The average rating for Explorations with sugars based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-06-25 00:00:00 Earl Carter A science historian and an art historian team up to produce this excellent illustrated essay on Alchemy and how it was the beginning of modern chemistry. From page 3: "In 1600, chymists knew of just seven metals - gold, silver, iron, copper, tin, lead, and mercury ... All have some properties in common: they all are shiny, and they all (except for the liquid metal mercury) can be hammered, shaped, and cast. This commonality of properties implied to early thinkers a commonality of composition, and thus it was theorized that all the metals were composed of the same essential ingredients in different proportions and degrees of purity. The Arabic writers of the Middle Ages, who laid the foundations of chymistry, cited two hypothetical ingredients and named them "Mercury" and "Sulphur." This so-called Mercury and Sulphur combined underground naturally to produce metals. If there is too much Mercury - the fluid principle - then tin and lead - the two most easily melted metals - result. If there is too much Sulphur - the dry, inflammable principle - then iron and copper - the two hardest metals and the two that will burn most easily in air - will be formed. Only when very pure Mercury and Sulphur combine thoroughly in just the right proportion will gold be the product. Given this theory of the generation of metals, turning one metal into another was a simple (in theory) matter of learning by what means to purify and adjust the proportions of Mercury and Sulphur in a given metal."

Review # 2 was written on 2016-07-20 00:00:00 Jon David I was expecting this to be a difficult read, but it really wasn't. If you are intimidated by the size of the book (like I was), don't be. I would definitely recommend to anyone with an interest in chemistry or the history of science. To be honest, I found the parts on early chemistry/alchemy not as interesting as the parts I was more familiar with, but that's just me. In my opinion the book just gets better and better as you go. In fact, my favorite parts are the last two pages of the last chapter, and the epilogue.