Rating: 
Summary: Thank heaven for puberty's hormonal rush
Review: "... I wanted to lay hands on cobaltite and niccolite, and compounds or minerals of manganese and molybdenum, of uranium and chromium ... I wanted to pulverize them, treat them with acid, roast them, reduce them - whatever was necessary - so I could extract their metals myself."
In the life of a pre-pubescent boy, whatever happened to the simple pleasures of sports, chasing girls to pull their pigtails, or playing cowboys and Indians?
UNCLE TUNGSTEN is the childhood memoir of Oliver Sacks, who, as the son of two physicians in 1930s and 40s London, adopts more cerebral interests. Actually, let's call them obsessions, e.g., Mendeleev's Table of the Elements:
"I copied it into my exercise book and carried it everywhere ... I spent hours now, enchanted, totally absorbed, wandering, making discoveries, in the enchanted garden of Mendeleev."
Oliver's propensity for intellectual pursuits was further encouraged by his two maternal uncles, Dave and Abe, two scientist/business entrepreneurs, the former nicknamed UNCLE TUNGSTEN for his preoccupation with that element and his process for manufacturing tungsten light bulbs.
This engaging and instructive volume is the author's narrative of his life from age 6 to 15, beginning in 1939 at the beginning of WWII, when he was protectively sent out of London to a boarding school. Returning in 1943, he set up his own household lab and began experimenting with a vengeance, his chief interest being metals and their properties. The text is leavened with descriptions of his home life, his parents and brothers, and summaries of the achievements of giants in the field of Chemistry: John Dalton, Robert Boyle, the Curies, Antoine Lavoisier, Dmitri Mendeleev, Ernest Rutherford, Michael Faraday, and others. UNCLE TUNGSTEN is a short, popular history of the science.
I'm not awarding 5 stars because obsessions, especially someone else's, can become tiresome. Even Oliver's parents, responsible as any for his scientific curiosity, could be driven to distraction. At one point on a family auto trip, the young Sacks blathers on about one of his favorite elements for twenty minutes in the back seat until his father shouts, "Enough about thallium!"
By the age of 15, Oliver's preoccupation with chemistry began to ebb as the hormones of adolescence began to flow. The boy, becoming a young man, discovers music and sex. Those then around him should thank the Almighty for puberty; he was becoming an insufferable eccentric. He grew up to be a neurologist.
Rating: 
Summary: A mesmerizing tour of the elements
Review: "It often happens that the mind of a person who is learning a new science, has to pass through all the phases which the science itself has exhibited in its historical evolution." (Stanislao Cannizzaro, Italian chemist, 1826 - 1910).These words had a powerful resonance for Oliver Sacks. When the gifted neurologist wrote his autobiography, he also wrote a history of chemistry as recapitulated through his own childhood experiences. He grew up in a very scientific family--his mother and father were physicians, and his uncle Dave (the 'Uncle Tungsten' of the title) was both a chemist and a business entrepreneur, who "would spend hundreds of hours watching all the processes in his factories: the sintering and drawing of the tungsten, the making of the coiled coils and molybdenum supports for the filaments, the filling of the bulbs with argon..." Uncle Tungsten allowed his nephew to perform chemical experiments in his laboratory, which contained samples of almost every element. Oliver's "physics uncle," Uncle Abe had a small telescopic observatory on top of his house, where he demonstrated the wonders of spectroscopy to his nephew: "The whole visible universe--planets, stars, distant galaxies--presented itself for spectroscopic analysis, and I got a vertiginous, almost ecstatic satisfaction from seeing familiar terrestrial elements out in space, seeing what I had known only intellectually before, that the elements were not just terrestrial but cosmic, were indeed the building blocks of the universe." No wonder young Oliver grew up with a love for the elements and their chemistry! Rarely do I read an autobiography and envy the author his childhood--most recent examples of this genre, e.g. "A Child Called 'It'" are grim, wailing texts--and that's not to say that Oliver didn't have his bad moments, too. He endured two horrible years at a Dickensian boarding school while London was being bombed by the Germans. For the most part though, his formative years were spent in a fantastic 'castle of the elements' where his "many uncles and aunts and cousins served as a sort of archive or reference library" to his enquiring mind. In "Uncle Tungsten," Dr. Sacks shares his learning experiences with us and in the process, writes a far more lucid history of chemistry and physics than any I've ever found in a textbook. He also takes his readers on a mesmerizing, personalized tour of the elements. If you enjoyed P.W. Atkin's quirky "The Periodic Kingdom" or Primo Levi's wonderful memoir "The Periodic Table," I can almost guarantee you'll fall in love with "Uncle Tungsten."
Rating:
Summary: Chemistry for the Scientifically Inept
Review: "Uncle Tungsten" by Oliver Sacks is a memoir of a young life in and near London in the 1940's and of a brilliant child's mind growing love affair with chemistry. Now, I am a former English teacher whose one high school chemistry class is, blessedly, far in the past. I was ready to be fascinated by Sacks' recollection of life in London before, during and after WWII, but I planned to, at best, skim the chemistry chapters. But Sachs is such a fine writer that the whole book resonates with brilliance, good sense and humanity--even the chapters on chemistry! Young Oliver Sacks sprang from a large, brilliant expatriate Jewish family which had found its way to London. Both his parents were physicians who opened the large, rambling house to Zionists--including his cousin eventually to be known as Israel's foreign minister Abba Eban. The chapters dealing with his family's history, his relocation--along with other children for safety reasons--during the Blitz to a dreadful boarding school in the Midlands, and his loneliness and alienation upon his eventual return are fascinating. But even more compelling (and I can't believe I'm saying this) are the chapters which detail young Oliver's fascination with chemistry. His mothers especially fosters this budding interest. Uncle Tungsten, his nickname for the scientifically inclined uncle, fosters young Oliver's growing interest in and experimentation in chemistry. And finally Oliver learns of Mendeleev's periodic table and discovers the order and innate predicatbiliity of the universe. Even for me this was a brilliant chapter! Oliver Sacks was not to become a chemist (he is a neurologist) but his young life as recounted in "Uncle Tungsten" is a fascinating one, from a different time and different place. It is not to be missed.
Rating:
Summary: A mesmerizing tour of the elements
Review: "It often happens that the mind of a person who is learning a new science, has to pass through all the phases which the science itself has exhibited in its historical evolution." (Stanislao Cannizzaro, Italian chemist, 1826 - 1910). These words had a powerful resonance for Oliver Sacks. When the gifted neurologist wrote his autobiography, he also wrote a history of chemistry as recapitulated through his own childhood experiences. He grew up in a very scientific family--his mother and father were physicians, and his uncle Dave (the 'Uncle Tungsten' of the title) was both a chemist and a business entrepreneur, who "would spend hundreds of hours watching all the processes in his factories: the sintering and drawing of the tungsten, the making of the coiled coils and molybdenum supports for the filaments, the filling of the bulbs with argon..." Uncle Tungsten allowed his nephew to perform chemical experiments in his laboratory, which contained samples of almost every element. Oliver's "physics uncle," Uncle Abe had a small telescopic observatory on top of his house, where he demonstrated the wonders of spectroscopy to his nephew: "The whole visible universe--planets, stars, distant galaxies--presented itself for spectroscopic analysis, and I got a vertiginous, almost ecstatic satisfaction from seeing familiar terrestrial elements out in space, seeing what I had known only intellectually before, that the elements were not just terrestrial but cosmic, were indeed the building blocks of the universe." No wonder young Oliver grew up with a love for the elements and their chemistry! Rarely do I read an autobiography and envy the author his childhood--most recent examples of this genre, e.g. "A Child Called 'It'" are grim, wailing texts--and that's not to say that Oliver didn't have his bad moments, too. He endured two horrible years at a Dickensian boarding school while London was being bombed by the Germans. For the most part though, his formative years were spent in a fantastic 'castle of the elements' where his "many uncles and aunts and cousins served as a sort of archive or reference library" to his enquiring mind. In "Uncle Tungsten," Dr. Sacks shares his learning experiences with us and in the process, writes a far more lucid history of chemistry and physics than any I've ever found in a textbook. He also takes his readers on a mesmerizing, personalized tour of the elements. If you enjoyed P.W. Atkin's quirky "The Periodic Kingdom" or Primo Levi's wonderful memoir "The Periodic Table," I can almost guarantee you'll fall in love with "Uncle Tungsten."
Rating:
Summary: Chemistry for the Scientifically Inept
Review: "Uncle Tungsten" by Oliver Sacks is a memoir of a young life in and near London in the 1940's and of a brilliant child's mind growing love affair with chemistry. Now, I am a former English teacher whose one high school chemistry class is, blessedly, far in the past. I was ready to be fascinated by Sacks' recollection of life in London before, during and after WWII, but I planned to, at best, skim the chemistry chapters. But Sachs is such a fine writer that the whole book resonates with brilliance, good sense and humanity--even the chapters on chemistry! Young Oliver Sacks sprang from a large, brilliant expatriate Jewish family which had found its way to London. Both his parents were physicians who opened the large, rambling house to Zionists--including his cousin eventually to be known as Israel's foreign minister Abba Eban. The chapters dealing with his family's history, his relocation--along with other children for safety reasons--during the Blitz to a dreadful boarding school in the Midlands, and his loneliness and alienation upon his eventual return are fascinating. But even more compelling (and I can't believe I'm saying this) are the chapters which detail young Oliver's fascination with chemistry. His mothers especially fosters this budding interest. Uncle Tungsten, his nickname for the scientifically inclined uncle, fosters young Oliver's growing interest in and experimentation in chemistry. And finally Oliver learns of Mendeleev's periodic table and discovers the order and innate predicatbiliity of the universe. Even for me this was a brilliant chapter! Oliver Sacks was not to become a chemist (he is a neurologist) but his young life as recounted in "Uncle Tungsten" is a fascinating one, from a different time and different place. It is not to be missed.
Rating:
Summary: A MAN, A METAL ...... AND SOMETHING DEEPER
Review: . Many of us as children would have first discovered the wonder-full world of science, by doing chemistry "experiments" and studying minerals. Oliver Sacks, when recounting his boyhood, takes us back to that time, when chemical reactions with their magical color changes, would open a child's imagination. This could feed their curiosity, and in turn, put them on a path to knowledge. Sacks writes with crystalline clarity. He describes his childhood passion for science in a way that is intense, immediate and refreshing. Have chemical properties ever been described so lyrically? " The color of lilacs in spring for me is that of divalent vanadium. Radishes for me evoke the smell of vanadium". Science for young Sacks went well beyond the bounds of facts and figures. For him it was almost a sensual and at times a spiritual thing. He uses musical analogies when describing the harmonics inherent in the symmetries of the Periodic Table of Elements. Sacks unashamedly worships his scientific heroes. The great French chemist Lavoisier, was the first to develop a symbolic notation for chemical reactions that went beyond the simple icono-graphics (shorthand or cryptology?) of the alchemists. Sacks equates Lavoisier's "Elements of Chemistry" with Isaac Newton's "Principia". With the invention of new scientific languages (eg chemical equations), advancement was no longer limited to the empiricism of the laboratory bench. New materials and processes could be conceptualized as "thought experiments" or put on paper, well before their actual discovery. Sacks marvels at the ability of the pioneering chemists who predicted the existence of new elements, purely by reason and deduction. To the average person, science is often seen as a dry, cerebral, passionless activity. Sacks's strength as a writer is his ability to capture the exuberance and enthusiasm that underpins and drives most scientific ventures. Many of Sacks's observations, although superficially simple, are in fact, profound. He reminds us that the crystalline symmetries seen in minerals are reflections of underlying atomic structures. Metals look metallic because of their surface's interaction with photons. His personal voyage takes us from the simple causes and effects of the pre-quantum mechanical world of his younger days to the probabilistic uncertainties of the causeless (blameless?) adult world. Sacks' writing provokes the thought, "how many quantum-related phenomena can we now see in our macro-world?" The random walk of Brownian motion (at a micro level) is everywhere, but the inverse-squared relationships (at a macro level) that are a consequence of Brownian paths, lead us to those step-like jumps that define "events" all around us, for example, everyday photoelectric phenomena. Oliver Sacks must take the prize for being the most accessible writer of things cerebral. He doesn't allow his own intelligence to get in the way of being a clear communicator. His modesty is engaging. The understated revelation that it was Sacks as a 12 year-old on a British radio quiz show in 1945, who got Glen Seaborg to reveal the discovery of the latest trans-uranic elements, is buried in footnote 11 on p210. One of the key messages in these memoirs is the importance of mentors to the young, growing mind. It was the advice, influence and support from Sacks' relatives, in particular Uncle Dave (U. Tungsten of the title) that allowed Oliver's potential to blossom. There is only one detectable blooper in this biography, but whether it was Uncle Tungsten's or the author's is unclear. It is on the subject of the origin of diamonds. On p37. Uncle Dave is quoted by Oliver as saying "they are brought to the surface in kimberlite, tracking hundreds of miles from the earth's mantle, and then through the crust, very, very slowly, till they finally reached the surface". Yet, on p129, one of Oliver's heroes, Sir Humphrey Davy is "burning a diamond". Most geological textbooks will tell you that for diamonds to make it through to the earth's surface they have to be transported from the mantle extremely rapidly to avoid being turned into graphite or CO2. The underlying theme of "Uncle Tungsten" is the convergence and ultimate unity, between man, the material world and the transcendental. It takes somebody with the intellect and power of communication like Oliver Sacks to convince us that our physical world, the domain of mind and ideas, and whatever is beyond, are bound together inseparably. This book has to be rated as one of the best memoirs of its kind. Oliver Sacks' earlier works must now become essential (re-) reading.
Rating:
Summary: The dean of element enthusiasts!
Review: A beautiful, beautiful book! In a wonderful amalgam, Oliver Sacks has combined reminisces of his life in war-torn London, with his unfolding education as a scientist, with a history of the chemical elements. Throughout the book the Sacks family appears as kinds of modern-day Bernoullies, chock-full of chemists and doctors. It is not surprising that Oliver grows up as a physician cum chemist. The book will appeal to anyone interested in 1) WW II London, 2) family dynamics, 3) the occurrence and nature of talents in families, and 4) the education of a budding scientist, his adventures -- and misadventures -- along the way. But the book has appeal to yet another kind of reader. Let me explain.
About two years ago, I wrote a review of Greenwood's "Chemistry of the Elements." I was surprised at the interest the review elicited, and I received some contacts from readers. It appears there are substantial numbers of "element enthusiasts" - people who generally are not professional chemists, but who have an enduring fascination with the chemical elements.
Through publication of his book, "Uncle Tungsten," Oliver Sacks has unquestionably advanced himself as the dean of element enthusiasts! The seamless transitions between Auntie Birdie, to Uncle Tungsten, to Curium and Einsteinium bespeak of a union with the chemical elements that is awesome.
The uncial-like etchings that introduce each chapter add a graceful touch. Not only are they decorative but they truly capture the mood of each chapter.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful!
Review: A jewel of a book, and a fascinating look into the early life of one of my favorite writers.
Rating:
Summary: Growing Up Chemically
Review: A report card from his early years predicted, "Sacks will go far, if he does not go too far." There need have been no worry, as it turns out. Oliver Sacks has published wonderful stories of his interactions with his neurological patients, like _Awakenings_ and _The Man Who Mistook His Wife for His Hat_, combining scientific teaching with history and with a sincere humanity. But there were times when the young Oliver went too far, and they are included in his fine memoir of his early years, _Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood_. It is a lovable account of a curious boy and his eccentric relatives who had professions in various scientific fields or dabbled in them, and a personal history of discovering chemistry from alchemy to quanta Anyone who has admired Sacks's previous work will find his latest one endearing and instructive. Sacks was born in 1933 in London. Both his parents were practicing physicians, and took him on house calls. There was an atmosphere that encouraged interest in books, theater, and music, but mostly in science. His Uncle Dave ran a company that made lightbulbs, and his admiration for and expertise in the tungsten which made the filaments made him known as Uncle Tungsten within the family. Many of us had chemistry sets when we were growing up (and one of his chapters is "Stinks and Bangs"), but Sacks seems to have grown up inside one. He was sent away from bomb-targeted London during the Blitz to a school in the midlands, a removal that scarred him in many ways. When he returned, he began to do his own experiments in his laboratory (formerly a laundry room). When the Science Museum opened again after the war, he had a religious vision when viewing its wall-sized periodic table; a two page reproduction of the table is within this book, an illustration of just how much chemistry, as well as memoir, that the book contains. It also has capsule biographies of the chemists through history of whom young Oliver became a fan (not for him movie stars or footballers). It is extremely strange that in a final chapter, "The End of the Affair," Sacks tells of Oliver's turn away from chemistry. To be sure, he had at an very young age mastered much of the field, but gradually at age 14 he began to turn away from it. The uncertainty and acausality of quantum mechanics played a role, for he realized he was not stirred by the new chemistry as he was the historic version he had pursued. His parents, loving and encouraging but not always understanding, started to show displeasure at his chemical expositions and influenced him more toward medicine. (A demonstration of misguided influence is that his mother brought him home malformed fetuses to dissect, a task which disgusted him: "She never perceived, I think, how distressed I became and probably imagined that I was as enthusiastic here as she was.") Beautifully written, _Uncle Tungsten_ gives us plenty of chemistry, but also a fascinating portrait of an unusual family. Sacks's loving understanding and sympathy for the young Oliver and his unusual upbringing has resulted in a yet another case study, just as humane as those of the other human specimens he has treated before, and deeply personal.
Rating:
Summary: A great reading that's instructive too!
Review: A wonderful book, maybe the best of Sacks's fascinating writings. Uncle Tungsten is at one time an autobiography and a historically oriented textbook of chemical discovery. A great read for grownups of any age, and a super introduction to chemistry without any pain. If I were teaching a history of science course it would be required reading.
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